Meta gave no timeline for when the change will become official, saying only that full rollout would come when it was confident the product worked. The countries included in Meta's pilot are Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay and Venezuela. Portuguese-speaking Brazil, the region's largest market for Meta's platforms, was excluded from the crowdsourcing trial.
The company's pivot came while US Secretary of State Marco Rubio was on a trip to the region, visiting countries whose leaders now align with President Donald Trump's policies. It follows a run of elections that have seen right-wing politicians, who are typically more favourable to digital deregulation, make huge gains across Latin America.
The new leaders rely on social media to burnish their images and spread disinformation. In some cases, they have been accused of deploying troll armies to simulate popular support across various platforms.
Mark Zuckerberg, in line with Republican views, cast the shift as a return to free expression. Meanwhile, the pilot program has drawn severe criticism from the world's main fact-checking network and independent digital watchdogs.