META boss Mark Zuckerberg is set to end the company’s ‘fact-checker’ programs in favour of a system used on rival site X.
“Biased” independent moderators on Facebook and Instagram will be replaced by ‘community notes’, where users have the power to add context or refute misleading posts.
The move echoes a decision made by Elon Musk, 53, in October 2023, as the Facebook co-founder, 40, looks to cosy up to president-elect Donald Trump.
Musk has grown close to the 78-year-old in the last few months, having attended his rallies and hosted online “conversations” on his social media site, X.
And he has even managed to secure a position in Trump’s new government, leading the Department of Government Efficiency – designed to reduce spending.
In a video announcing the changes to his company yesterday, Zuckerberg said: “The recent elections also feel like a cultural tipping point towards once again prioritising speech.
“We’re 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.
He added that the third-party moderators had become too “politically biased and have destroyed more trust than they have created.”
And Trump, who has his presidential inauguration on January 20, hailed the “impressive” move, remarking that Meta had “come a long way”.
It came after Meta’s announcement on Monday that UFC boss Dana White, a close friend of Trump, had joined its board of directors.
White has previously spoken at a Trump rally and can often be seen alongside the former president at UFC events.
Dawn Alford, Executive Director of the Society of Editors, said Meta’s decision is a significant shift in its approach to content moderation.
“It underscores the critical role legacy media plays in ensuring the public has access to trustworthy, rigorously verified information.
“In an era where misinformation can spread rapidly online, the work of professional journalists in holding power to account and separating fact from fiction is more vital than ever.
“Fact-checking requires expertise, context, and independence—qualities that cannot always be guaranteed in a decentralised, user-driven model like Meta’s proposed community notes.”
