Meta must prioritise human rights, not politics

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Meta must prioritise human rights, not politics

If there was any question that 2025 would be a year of drastic change and political shocks, news from Meta yesterday put an abrupt end to that.

CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s announcement of Meta’s plans to completely overhaul its content moderation practices, including eliminating the use of fact-checkers, has sent reverberations around the world.

The timing of the announcement, just days before the inauguration of President-elect Trump, smacks of an effort to appease a political faction that has accused Meta of suppressing conservative viewpoints. It calls into question the integrity of Meta’s commitment to freedom of expression and its willingness to address the actual human rights challenges on its platforms.

No one is happy with the content moderation of social media as it now stands – Meta and other companies continue to fall short of their human rights responsibilities. But the answer must lie in prioritising human rights and ensuring that content moderation practices are transparent and accountable, not in parroting conservative media’s talking points about liberal bias.

Zuckerberg says he’s determined to work ‘with President Trump to push back on governments around the world that are going after American companies and pushing to censor’. We fully support efforts to push back on attempts by governments to censor lawful speech. But his specific targeting of the European Union’s efforts to regulate Big Tech suggests nothing more than an effort to undermine attempts to achieve accountability through tech regulation.

The policy shift has little to do with free expression. It’s a prioritisation of corporate interests over respect for human rights, and it risks fostering an environment where hateful content can proliferate unchecked.


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ALSO IN THE NEWS

Charlie Hebdo, 10 years on

This week we mark 10 years since the Charlie Hebdo attacks, when extremists killed 12 people at the satirical magazine’s offices in Paris.

The anniversary is a sombre reminder that threats to free expression can be deadly and catastrophic. Such events galvanise the movement to protect freedom of expression because they remind us of just what is at stake.

As it publishes an anniversary edition ([link removed]) of the publication, we remember the people who lost their lives, and applaud Charlie Hebdo’s insistence that we celebrate the ‘desire to laugh’.

Read more about our work ([link removed])

PLUS

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Online Event:

China, the Belt and Road Initiative, and Implications on Digital Governance, Authoritarianism and the Future of Human Rights

17.01.24 | 14:00 (Taipei Time)

Join scholars and activists from the Global South on 17 January as we explore how China's digital strategies impact human rights and governance.

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