The criticisms follow one another and are similar against Mark Zuckerberg. The International Fact-Checking Network IFCN (International fact-checking network) sharply responded to the justifications of the boss of Meta, on his decision on Tuesday January 7 to end its fact-checking program in the United States, considering that “fact-checkers have been too politically oriented and have done more to reduce trust than to improve it”. A judged argument «faux» and who will lead “harm in many places”responded the collective in an open letter published Thursday January 9.
“We want to re-establish the truth, both for the current context and for History”continued the IFCN, which brings together more than 130 organizations, including the AFP. The network also estimated that the end of Meta’s worldwide fact-checking program would cause a “real harm”. Among the more than a hundred countries with a similar program, some are “highly vulnerable to disinformation that leads to political instability, election interference, mass violence and even genocides”adds the international organization created in 2015.
The IFCN is not the only one to have reacted on the subject. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, affirmed on his X account this Friday, January 10 that regulating hateful content online was not “no censorship”.
A decision which, for the moment, only affects the United States
The end of the fact-checking program launched by Facebook in 2016 with more than 80 organizations responsible for verifying information in more than 60 languages has cast a chill in the fact-checking community. In a press release published this Tuesday on X, Angie Drobnic Holan, director of the IFCN and former editor-in-chief of the American media PolitiFact, also estimated that “This decision will harm social media users who seek accurate and reliable information to make decisions about their daily lives and their interactions with friends and family”.
-For now, both Mark Zuckerberg and Meta have declared that the fact-checking program will only end in the United States. At the end of the day, Tuesday January 7, Clara Chappaz, the delegate minister responsible for Artificial Intelligence and digital technology, announced on “assured that this feature will only be deployed in the United States for the moment. In Europe, the Digital Service Act will be respected.”
Just a few days before Donald Trump’s second inauguration ceremony, Mark Zuckerberg’s decision comes in a context where the leaders of American Big Tech are seeking at all costs to curry favor with the president-elect . Tim Cook, Sam Altman or even Jeff Bezos, for example, not one of them missed the call for funds to finance the inauguration ceremony on January 20.
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