Meta Shuts Down Fact-Checking: Zuckerberg Champions Free Speech
Meta’s fact-checking program is coming to an end, after it was announced the company will be moving toward community notes similar to X. Meta’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced on social media the company will “getting…
Meta’s fact-checking program is coming to an end, after it was announced the company will be moving toward community notes similar to X.
Meta’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced on social media the company will “getting back to its roots on free expression” across its Facebook and Instagram platforms.
“There’s been widespread debate about potential harms from online content,” Zuckerberg said in a video announcement, “Governments and legacy media have pushed to censor more and more. A lot of this is clearly political, but there’s also a lot of legitimately bad stuff out there — drugs, terrorism, child exploitation — these are things that we take very seriously, and I want to make sure that we handle responsibly.”
Zuckerberg went on to say the company “built a lot of complex systems to moderate content,” but noted these systems can sometimes make mistakes, further pointing out there have now been “too many mistakes” and “too much Censorship.”
According to Zuckerberg, Fact-checkers will be replaced with Community Notes similar to X, and the roll out will begin first in the U.S., with the CEO noting legacy media wrote “nonstop” that misinformation is a threat to democracy and has done so since President-elect Donald Trump was first elected in 2016.