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Meta is carrying out the biggest overhaul to its content moderation system in years.
The company announced on Tuesday that it's replacing third-party fact-checking program with user-generated community notes, like those on Elon Musk's X, formerly Twitter.
In another page from Musk's playbook, Meta said it's moving some teams — specifically its trust and safety teams, responsible for writing the company's content policies and reviewing content — out of California into Texas and other locations in the US.
CEO Mark Zuckerberg said the decision was about getting "back to our roots and focus on reducing mistakes, simplifying our policies, and restoring free expression on our platforms."
Democratic lawmakers told BI at the US Capitol on Tuesday that they saw the move as a sign that Zuckerberg is trying to appease President-elect Donald Trump ahead of his return to the Oval Office.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York said Zuckerberg was "kissing Trump's ass" in making the change.
"I think that Mark Zuckerberg is trying to follow in Elon's footsteps, which means that actually, they're going to use this guise of free speech to actually suppress critics of Trump and critics of themselves," Ocasio-Cortez said. "That's why they're moving to this system. It's a model for their own self-aggrandizement."
Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts told BI that Big Tech CEOs "want a government that works for them, and they're making clear that sucking up to Donald Trump is one of the ways they think they'll get that."
Rep. Maxwell Frost of Florida said the change appeared to be symptomatic of authoritarianism.
"It's not just about the legislation they pass, or what they push, but it creates this environment of fear and self-censorship, and a place where companies will begin to do the things he wants them to do without him forcing them to do it," he said, referring to Trump.
"They're surrendering essentially to implied threats by the government, which is very dangerous," Rep. Jerry Nadler of New York said.
Trump himself told reporters Tuesday that he believed Zuckerberg's changes at Meta were "probably" in response to previous threats Trump has made to the Meta chief executive, including to jail him.
Republicans offered more mixed reactions to Zuckerberg's decision, with some expressing skepticism while others saw it as a win. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas told reporters at the Capitol that what the Meta CEO said "sounds good" but that the "proof will be in the pudding."
He also said he saw Zuckerberg's move as the product of both political positioning and a sincere evolution in his thinking.
"I've had multiple conversations with Mark on this topic," Cruz said, "and I will say, he had previously expressed an interest in protecting free speech."
Sen. Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, meanwhile, called the decision a "ploy to avoid being regulated." For several years, she's been pushing a bill to increase social media protections for kids.
"Can any of us assume Zuckerberg won't return to his old tricks?" wrote Sen. Mike Lee of Utah on X.
Republican Rep. Randy Weber of Texas, meanwhile, wrote on X that it was "a great day for freedom of speech."
"It seems like Meta is finally taking a page from Elon Musk's playbook & letting Americans make decisions for themselves. It's about time Meta owned up to censoring Americans," he added.
In the tech and business world, some of Zuck's peers congratulated him and Meta on the move.
Musk said in separate tweets that the decision was "cool" and "awesome."
X CEO Linda Yaccarino called it "a smart move by Zuck."
"Fact-checking and moderation doesn't belong in the hands of a few select gatekeepers who can easily inject their bias into decisions. It's a democratic process that belongs in the hands of many," she wrote.
David Marcus, the former Meta exec in charge of the company's Libra cryptocurrency project, said the change marked a "massive step in the right direction towards free expression for Meta."
Other tech and business figures were more skeptical of the decision.
Yoel Roth, the former head of Twitter's trust and safety department, said, "Genuinely baffled by the unempirical assertion that Community Notes 'works.' Does it? How do Meta know? The best available research is pretty mixed on this point. And as they go all-in on an unproven concept, will Meta commit to publicly releasing data so people can actually study this?"
And in response to a message from Zuckerberg saying Meta will work with Trump to "push back against foreign governments going after American companies to censor more," Mark Cuban wrote on Bluesky: "Translation: Americans are going to see Tariffs on products from countries you believe censor Meta services as a means of pressuring them into removing any restrictions that impact your profitability in those countries. Also: You'll have carte blanche to take posts that no longer have restrictions, making them a more explicit representation, and train your AI Models."
Meta did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
