If Facebook is a place where someone can strike a match of misinformation then its founder, Mark Zuckerberg, just handed gasoline to anyone who wants to spread that misinformation.
Tuesday is a day that will go down in social media infamy. Meta, the company that oversees Facebook, Instagram and Threads, announced that it is essentially ending its fact-checking program designed to stop the spread of misinformation that can range from harmful to outright deadly.
Instead of relying on news organizations and other trained parties to fact-check posts, Meta is turning the job over to users in the form of community notes. In other words, users of Meta’s social media platforms will be in charge of policing themselves.
And the timing of this news couldn’t be more obvious as Donald Trump is set to take office in less than two weeks. This says it all: Meta broke the news exclusively on Fox News’ “Fox & Friends,” the favorite morning show of Trump and his MAGA followers.
The New York Times’ Theodore Schleifer and Mike Isaac wrote, “Ever since Mr. Trump’s victory in November, few big companies have worked as overtly to curry favor with the president-elect. In a series of announcements during the presidential transition period, Meta has sharply shifted its strategy in response to what Mr. Zuckerberg called a 'cultural tipping point' marked by the election. … Meta’s move on Tuesday morning elated conservative allies of Mr. Trump, many of whom have disliked Meta’s practice of adding disclaimers or warnings to questionable or false posts. Mr. Trump has long railed against Mr. Zuckerberg, claiming the fact-checking feature treated posts by conservative users unfairly.”
CNN’s Brian Stelter wrote, “Conservatives immediately cheered Meta’s changes while others, including misinformation experts, warned Meta’s platforms would become even more of a cesspool. False and hateful content will likely become even more commonplace on the social networks.”
Nicole Gill, executive director of Accountable Tech, called the news “a gift to Donald Trump and extremists around the world.”
Of course, Zuckerberg can’t come right out and say he’s genuflecting at the altar of Trump, so he explained the decision this way: “We’ve reached a point where it’s just too many mistakes and too much censorship. The recent elections also feel like a cultural tipping point toward once again prioritizing speech. So we are going to get back to our roots, focus on reducing mistakes, simplifying our policies, and restoring free expression on our platforms.”
Zuckerberg’s fallback has always been about freedom of speech and stopping censorship. He also said “fact-checkers have been too politically biased.”
But Poynter president Neil Brown said Meta has always set its own tools and rules, while Poynter’s PolitiFact and Meta’s other fact-checking partners offered independent reviews and showed their sources.
Brown said, “To blame fact-checkers is a disappointing cop-out and it perpetuates a misunderstanding of its own program. Facts are not censorship. Fact-checkers never censored anything. And Meta always held the cards. It's time to quit invoking inflammatory and false language in describing the role of journalists and fact-checking.”
Even Zuckerberg admitted the new policy could create problems with content moderation, saying, “The reality is this is a tradeoff. It means that we’re going to catch less bad stuff, but we’ll also reduce the number of innocent people’s posts and accounts that we accidentally take down.”
But which is worse? Some innocent posts occasionally and accidentally removed or more “bad stuff” not being caught?
Angie Drobnic Holan, director of the International Fact-Checking Network at Poynter, said in a statement, “This decision will hurt social media users who are looking for accurate, reliable information to make decisions about their everyday lives and interactions with friends and family. Fact-checking journalism has never censored or removed posts; it’s added information and context to controversial claims, and it’s debunked hoax content and conspiracy theories.”
Now that added information and context and debunking will be turned over to those who aren’t trained to do so, or who won’t do the unbiased, deep reporting that places like PolitiFact does.
Drobnic Holan said, “The fact-checkers used by Meta follow a Code of Principles requiring nonpartisanship and transparency. It’s unfortunate that this decision comes in the wake of extreme political pressure from a new administration and its supporters. Fact-checkers have not been biased in their work — that attack line comes from those who feel they should be able to exaggerate and lie without rebuttal or contradiction.”
Tuesday’s news was just another example of Meta’s obvious attempt to cozy up to Trump, just as X owner Elon Musk has. In fact, Meta is taking the same approach to moderating content as X. Meta chief global affairs officer Joel Kaplan said in a blog post, “We’ve seen this approach work on X — where they empower their community to decide when posts are potentially misleading and need more context.”
But has it worked?
Trump and those on the right would say yes. Few others would.
The Washington Post’s Naomi Nix, Will Oremus and Aaron Gregg wrote, “The announcement is the latest in a flurry of changes at Meta that are likely to be embraced by a second Trump administration. Last week, the company named Joel Kaplan, a Republican with deep experience in Washington, as its chief global affairs officer, replacing former British politician Nick Clegg. And on Monday, it named Dana White, a longtime Trump ally and president of the Ultimate Fighting Championship, to its board of directors.”
And Stelter noted, “The company is also getting rid of content restrictions on certain topics, such as immigration and gender identity, and rolling back limits on how much politics-related content users see in their feeds.”
Aaron Sharockman, executive director of PolitiFact and Poynter’s vice president for sales and strategic partnerships, said in a statement that Zuckerberg’s move has nothing to do with free speech or censorship, adding “Mark Zuckerberg’s decision could not be less subtle.”
Sharockman wrote, “Let me be clear: the decision to remove or penalize a post or account is made by Meta and Facebook, not fact-checkers. They created the rules.”
Sharockman reminded audiences that PolitiFact and other U.S.-based journalists merely provided additional speech and context to posts that contained misinformation. Then it was up to Meta and Facebook to decide what to do next, including any penalties, such as removing posts or banning accounts.
Sharockman wrote, “It was Facebook and Meta that created a system that allowed ordinary citizens to see their posts demoted but exempted politicians and political leaders who said the very same things. In case it needs to be said, PolitiFact and U.S.-based journalists played no role in the decision to remove Donald Trump from Facebook.”
Zuckerberg can preach all he wants about censorship and free speech and all that. But it’s pretty easy to see through his words.
Nora Benavidez, senior counsel at the advocacy group Free Press, told The New York Times’ Danielle Kaye, “While Zuckerberg characterized the platform giant’s new approach as a defense of free speech, its real intentions are twofold: Ditch the technology company’s responsibility to protect the health and safety of its users, and align the company more closely with an incoming president who’s a known enemy of accountability.”
More notable pieces on Meta’s controversial decision:
