Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta announced that it is ending its fact-checking program in the United States and will implement community notes similar to Elon Musk’s X.
“We’re gonna get back to our roots and focus on reducing mistakes, simplifying our policies, and restoring free expression on our platforms,” Zuckerberg said in a video. “More specifically, here’s what we’re going to do. First, we’re going to get rid of fact-checkers and replace them with community notes similar to X, starting in the U.S.”
He explained that fact-checkers have become “too politically biased and have destroyed more trust than they created, especially in the U.S.”
Zuckerberg further stated that Meta will simplify its content policies. “What started as a movement to be more inclusive has increasingly been used to shut down opinions and shut out people with different ideas. And it’s gone too far,” he said.
Meta will also implement a new approach to policy enforcement, Zuckerberg. In a blog post on the development, Joel Kaplan, Meta’s Chief Global Affairs Officer, explained, “Up until now, we have been using automated systems to scan for all policy violations, but this has resulted in too many mistakes and too much content being censored that shouldn’t have been. So, we’re going to continue to focus these systems on tackling illegal and high-severity violations, like terrorism, child sexual exploitation, drugs, fraud and scams.” For less severe violations, Meta will rely on a reporting system.
The company’s trust and safety teams, as well as its content moderation teams, will move out of California and into Texas.
Meta will also bring back civic content. After initially removing political posts, Facebook, Instagram, and Threads will now begin phasing the material back into the platforms.
“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,” Zuckerberg added in the video, noting that the “only way we can push back against this trend is with the support of the U.S. government.”
“It’ll take time to get this right, and these are complex systems that are never going to be perfect. There’s also a lot of illegal stuff that we still need to work very hard to remove. But the bottom line is that after years of having our content moderation focused primarily on removing content, it is time to focus on reducing mistakes, simplifying our system, and getting back to our roots about giving people voice,” he said.
