A few days before Donald Trump returns to the presidency of the United States, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg unveiled several changes that the company will make to its Facebook, Instagram, Threads and WhatsApp platforms, with the end of the fact-checking program, which will be replaced by a user-written Community Notes program similar to the model used by X, the social network owned by Elon Musk.
This policy had been implemented to reduce the spread of misinformation, for now the changes will only apply to the United States, a reversal with which Meta seeks to reposition itself before the presidency of Donald Trump
“The recent elections also feel like a cultural turning point towards once again prioritizing free speech,” Zuckerberg said in an online video, acknowledging that the company had strayed from its values and “it’s time to get back to our roots around free speech”.
Zuckerberg explains Meta’s fact-checking changes
Zuckerberg acknowledged that the fact-checking system used by the company had “gotten to a point where there are too many errors and too much censorship.”
With the changes, Meta will be more flexible and Zuckerberg acknowledged that with the decision there could be more “bad things”, but it is really a trade-off.
“This means we’re going to detect fewer bad things, but we’re also going to reduce the number of posts and accounts of innocent people that we accidentally remove,” Zuckerberg said in the video, adding that among the changes will also be to “remove restrictions on issues such as immigration and gender that are out of touch with mainstream discourse.”
The Oversight Board, set up to act as an independent arbiter of Meta’s controversial content decisions, said it welcomed the changes and looked forward to working with the company. Zuckerberg added that the moderation team would move to California, while the content review team would be based in Texas, to help “remove the concern that biased employees are over-censoring content”.