COWARDLY mark zuckerberg ends fact checking on his joke of a social platform, meta (facebook, instagram and threads) to prioritize free expression due to the 'cultural tipping point' society seems to be in.....So post away on his sites promoting your lies, propaganda, hate, violence, prejudice, ignorance, misogyny, deception, xenophobia, authoritarianism.....Stoke the fires of class warfare while you genuflect before the theocratic oligarchy that will dispose of you as soon as you are no longer needed. From the Washington Post......
Meta ends fact checks as it prepares for Trump era
CEO Mark Zuckerberg says Facebook, Instagram and Threads will prioritize “free expression,” citing a “cultural tipping point.”
In a video accompanying a Meta blog post, Zuckerberg cited errors made by the company’s fact-checking team and alluded to the presidential election victory of Donald Trump, who has often raged against fact-checking as an impediment to free speech.
“We’ve reached a point where it’s just too many mistakes and too much censorship,” Zuckerberg said. “The recent elections also feel like a cultural tipping point toward once again prioritizing speech. So we are going to get back to our roots, focus on reducing mistakes, simplifying our policies, and restoring free expression on our platforms.”
The move heralds a shift both at Meta and across the social media industry toward a more laissez-faire approach to what users can post — and a victory for conservatives who have waged a years-long campaign against fact-checking and content moderation.
A decade ago, revelations that Russian operatives exploited Facebook and other social networks to divide Americans and boost Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign sparked bipartisan pressure on tech giants to rein in fake news and disinformation. The industry doubled down on fact-checking in 2021 — including by banning Trump from popular social media networks — in response to charges that online activity had fueled both the Jan. 6 insurrection and falsehoods about the coronavirus.
But Trump and leading Republicans increasingly fought back, decrying the efforts as a form of censorship and launching lawsuits and congressional investigations alleging a broad liberal conspiracy to quash conservative views — even as right-wing voices continued to thrive on social networks.
Now, with Trump returning to office, social networks are racing to roll back those policies as they position themselves to answer to a Republican administration and Congress.
The announcement is the latest in a flurry of changes at Meta that are likely to be embraced by a second Trump administration. Last week, the company named Joel Kaplan, a Republican with deep experience in Washington, as its chief global affairs officer, replacing former British politician Nick Clegg. And on Monday, it named Dana White, a longtime Trump ally and president of the Ultimate Fighting Championship, to its board of directors.
In November, Zuckerberg dined with Trump at Mar-a-Lago. Last month, Meta donated $1 million to his inauguration committee as part of its bid to mend relations with the incoming president, whom the company suspended from its platforms in January 2021 before reinstating him in 2023.
Zuckerberg has been increasingly conciliatory toward Trump in the past year. He called the president elect a “bada--” after an attempted assassination in July. The following month, Zuckerberg told Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) in a letter that the Biden administration “repeatedly pressured” the company to remove some covid-related misinformation during the pandemic, agreeing with a long-standing Republican talking point.
The end of the fact-checking program could deal a devastating blow to the coterie of organizations that rely on Meta’s funding to track and counteract viral conspiracy theories.
To avoid direct responsibility for the thorny task of determining truth, it looked outside the company. Meta built and funded a swath of independent organizations, using their recommendations on when to remove or label a post on one of its networks.
The policy shift came as a surprise to several of these organizations. “We did not know that this was coming,” said Alan Duke, editor in chief of Lead Stories, a fact-checking website that receives funding from Meta. “In fact, we had been assured that the 2025 fact-checking program was on and fully supported by Meta.”
A survey of fact-checking groups from around the world by the International Fact-Checking Network found 63.5 percent of them participated in Meta’s Third-Party Fact-Checking Program, while less than 15 percent of fact-checkers participate in a similar program run by TikTok. The vast majority of groups have budgets of less than $1 million, and rely on a handful of employees to conduct their work, according to the survey.
In recent years, Meta has rolled back or weakened policies intended to reduce the spread of falsehoods on its network. In the run-up to the 2024 election, the company allowed politicians to claim the 2020 election was rigged in political ads, allowed individual users to opt out of Meta’s fact-checking program and curtailed its voter information center — a program designed to promote accurate election information.
The approach might help Meta avoid regulatory battles in the new administration. Meta is slated to head to trial over a FTC lawsuit seeking to break up the company.
Andrew Ferguson, Trump’s pick to lead the Federal Trade Commission, has railed against moderation, saying he plans to target companies “that facilitate or promote censorship” through “anticompetitive cartels” for breakups.
Duke argued that these are inaccurate representations of his organization, which does not facilitate censorship. “Fact-checking enhances free speech,” Duke said. “We … add to the public discussion by delivering facts to counter false claims.”
Other tech giants have also embraced Trump as the industry seeks to avoid a repeat of his first term, in which the president often clashed with Silicon Valley.
The new community notes system will be phased in over the next several months and honed over the course of 2025, the company said. Musk’s reliance on community notes in lieu of fact-checkers has drawn praise as a clever concept but has also been criticized as insufficient to rein in falsehoods and unfounded conspiracy theories on the platform.
“Just like they do on X, Community Notes will require agreement between people with a range of perspectives to help prevent biased ratings,” Kaplan wrote.
Meta’s fact-checking program has long been a target of Republicans, who argue that the project amounts to censorship and curtails conservatives’ speech. Some Republican leaders criticize Meta’s use of independent fact-checkers, accusing the organizations of political bias.
Such objections are likely to be elevated as Republicans assume control over Congress and the White House
In a podcast interview last year, Zuckerberg said he regretted accepting criticism that social media was responsible for societal ills, arguing that the company should have pushed back harder on such allegations.
“I think that the political miscalculation was a 20-year mistake,” Zuckerberg said.
“I think it’s going to take another 10 years or so for us to fully work through that cycle before our brand and all of that is back to the place that it maybe could have been if I hadn’t messed that up in the first place.”
Cristiano Lima-Strong contributed to this report.
This is a developing story and will be updated.
