Meta Ends Fact-Checking on Facebook, Instagram, Threads to 'Reduce Censorship'
Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta, has announced that the social media giant is abandoning the use of third-party fact-checking on its Facebook, Instagram, and Threads platforms, starting in the US. Instead, Meta is introducing community notes, similar to those on Elon Musk's X. The move comes as Meta owner Mark Zuckerberg seeks to reconcile with US President-elect Trump. Zuckerberg's Meta also donated $1 million (€962,310) to Trump's inauguration fund.
In a video he posted on Facebook, Zuckerberg said that Meta is focused on ‘restoring free speech’ across its platforms, which also include Instagram, Threads and Whatsapp.
‘It's time to get back to our roots of freedom of expression. We're replacing fact-checking with community notes, simplifying our policies, and focusing on reducing errors,’ Zuckerberg said in another statement.
The 40-year-old billionaire said that ‘the recent election seems to be a cultural tipping point to put words back in charge’.
Meta will ‘simplify’ its content policies ‘and get rid of a bunch of restrictions on topics like immigration and gender that are simply not relevant to mainstream discourse’.
Meta will also move its trust and security and content moderation teams from California to Texas. Zuckerberg suggested that the southern state is a place where there is ‘less concern about bias in our teams’.
Zuckerberg argued that ‘fact-checkers have simply been too politically biased and have destroyed more trust than they've created, especially in the United States.’
Many conservatives describe fact-checking programmes as censorship.
Elon Musk's X platform, which Zuckerberg says the new Meta system should emulate, also abandoned fact-checking and replaced it with community notes.
After the riots in the Capitol on 6 January 2021, Facebook banned Trump, although his account was later reinstated.
In November, Zuckerberg had lunch with Trump at his Mar-a-Lago resort, which was seen as an attempt to mend his company's relationship with the future US president.
In his video on Tuesday, Zuckerberg said that Meta would ‘work with President Trump to stand up to governments around the world that are harassing American companies and increasing censorship’.
He cited what he called European laws that ‘institutionalise censorship,’ Latin American ‘secret courts’ and widespread censorship practices in China, calling on the US government to support ‘this global trend.’
However, German Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck criticised the new Meta changes. Speaking from the campaign trail in Hamburg, the leading Green candidate said he did not welcome Zuckerberg's announcement.
‘Freedom does not mean no rules,’ Habeck said.