Meta ditches fact-checks for X-style content moderation system
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The news: Meta will end its third-party fact-checking program in the US, replacing it with a user-driven "Community Notes" system, similar to Elon Musk’s X.
CEO Mark Zuckerberg called the move a return to "free expression," citing "too many mistakes and too much censorship" in the existing system.
The context: The changes come as Meta strengthens ties with President-elect Donald Trump after a frosty relationship since Trump was banned from Facebook and Instagram following the US Capitol riot in January 2021.
After dining with Trump at his Mar-a-Lago estate last November, Zuckerberg donated USD1 million ($1.59 million) to his inauguration fund. The company is also making moves towards conservative-friendly policies, naming Joel Kaplan, a prominent Republican adviser, to lead global policy.
On Monday, Meta appointed UFC CEO Dana Frederick White, a Trump ally, to its board. Auto tycoon John Elkann and tech investor Charlie Songhurst were also appointed, joining a 10-member board that Axios notes includes seven billionaires.
The numbers: Meta’s third-party fact-checking program was launched in 2016 in response to widespread criticism over misinformation during that year’s US presidential election.
NBC noted the program involved over 90 organisations globally, including PolitiFact, Snopes and Factcheck.org, reviewing content in more than 60 languages.
Content moderation will now focus on high-severity violations while easing restrictions on topics like immigration and gender identity, the company said.
Moderation teams will relocate out of California to Texas, which would “help remove the concern that biased employees are overly censoring content,” Zuckerberg said, adding the changes will phase in across the US over the coming months.
What they said: “We’re going to get rid of fact-checkers and replace them with community notes, similar to X, starting in the US. It’s time to get back to our roots around free expression,” Zuckerberg said in a video posted on the company’s website.
We’re going to work with President Trump to push back on governments around the world that are going after American companies and pushing to censor more.”
“We built a lot of complex systems to moderate content, but the problem with complex systems is they make mistakes. Even if they accidentally censor just 1% of posts, that’s millions of people.”
“Recent elections also feel like a cultural tipping point towards once again prioritising speech.”
“We’re also going to tune our content filters to require much higher confidence before taking down content. The reality is that this is a trade-off. It means we are 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.”
The sources: Meta , NBC News , The New York Times
