Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s announcement Tuesday that Facebook and Instagram will no longer use fact-checkers comes after he has softened on President-elect Donald Trump in recent months.
Newsweek has reached out to Meta for comment via email.
Why It Matters
Conservatives, who have long said Meta’s use of fact-checkers shows that it is politically biased, celebrated Zuckerberg’s move as a victory for “free speech.” But critics of his decision have raised concerns that this could catalyze the spread of misinformation to the more than 3 billion people who use Facebook.
Zuckerberg said Meta, the parent company of Facebook, the world’s largest social media platform, will drop fact-checkers and instead rely on a user-generated community notes system similar to that on X (formerly Twitter), which is owned by Trump ally Elon Musk.
What To Know
Zuckerberg announced the changes to Facebook’s moderation system in a video on Tuesday, criticizing governments and “legacy media” for allegedly pushing censorship—a refrain that has grown common among many conservative media critics.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg testifies during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on January 31, 2024. Zuckerberg, once a Donald Trump critic, donated $1 million to his inaugural committee and dined at his Mar-a-Lago home in Florida in late November.
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Zuckerberg pointed to the 2024 election and Trump’s defeat of Vice President Kamala Harris as a “cultural tipping point to once again prioritizing speech.”
“After Trump first got elected in 2016, the legacy media wrote nonstop about how misinformation was a threat to democracy. We tried in good faith to address those concerns without becoming the arbiters of truth. But the fact-checkers have just been too politically biased and have destroyed more trust than they’ve created,” he said.
Zuckerberg added that he will move the content moderation team from California, with content review to be based in Texas. He added that he believes having these workers based in a place where “there is less concern about the bias of our teams” will help the company “build trust.”
He also said he plans to work with Trump to push back against governments that are “going after American companies” and promoting censorship. He also raised concerns about the U.S. government allegedly pushing censorship “over the past four years.”
Zuckerberg Was Once Trump Critic
Zuckerberg’s softened tone on Trump sounds much different from his comments in the past, when he frequently criticized him. Zuckerberg drew Trump’s ire after Meta removed the president’s Facebook account after the January 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol, when Trump supporters violently protested the 2020 election results.
Less than a year earlier, Zuckerberg, who used to champion left-leaning causes, criticized Trump’s rhetoric about the Black Lives Matter movement in June 2020, when the nation saw widespread protests over the killing of George Floyd in police custody.
“We are deeply shaken and disgusted by President Trump’s divisive and incendiary rhetoric at a time when our nation so desperately needs unity,” Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, wrote in a letter in 2020 in response to calls to take down some of Trump’s statements. They did, however, decide to keep his posts up.
Zuckerberg also spoke out against Trump’s immigration policy in January 2017 after his first inauguration.
“Like many of you, I’m concerned about the impact of the recent executive orders signed by President Trump,” he wrote.
Zuckerberg later became less vocally critical of Trump. Following the 2024 election, he donated $1 million to his inaugural committee and dined at his Mar-a-Lago home in Florida in late November, the Associated Press reported.
He also praised Trump’s response to last July’s assassination attempt as “one of the most badass things I’ve ever seen in my life.” Still, he did not formally endorse Trump or say he voted for him.
Meanwhile, Trump has attacked Zuckerberg over the years, threatening him with “life in prison” in his book Save America, which came out this past September.
“He told me there was nobody like Trump on Facebook. But at the same time, and for whatever reason, steered it against me. We are watching him closely, and if he does anything illegal this time he will spend the rest of his life in prison — as will others who cheat in the 2024 Presidential Election,” Trump wrote.
What People Are Saying
Conservative commentator Ben Shapiro said on X: “This is a sea change in the direction at Facebook. Zuckerberg spelled out his vision of free speech at Georgetown in 2019, to the consternation and shock of the Left; Facebook then proceeded to cave, engaging in mass censorship. The tide has turned. Good for Zuckerberg.”
Commentator Roland Martin said on X: “This is 100% capitulation by Mark@finkd Zuckerberg. Just despicable.”
What Happens Next
Meta’s new policies come just weeks before Trump is set to take office on January 20 and will be rolled out throughout the year.
