Mark Zuckerberg, the boss of META, announced radical changes on Facebook and Instagram to move closer to freedom of expression, including:
- End third-party fact-checking and replace it with community ratings like ????
- Removal of reduction of political content
- Removing topic restrictions
Activist “journalist” Julien Pain is worried because these announcements raise concerns about his professional future:
Today, Facebook pays more than 80 media outlets around the world to use their “fact-checks” on its platform, on WhatsApp and on Instagram. But Mark Zuckerberg believes that
“auditors have been too politically oriented and have done more to reduce trust than to improve it, particularly in the United States.”
The group should cut back on its moderation policy. Facebook will
“put an end to a certain number of limits concerning subjects, such as immigration and gender, which are no longer in the dominant discourses”, explains Mark Zuckerberg, for whom “the recent elections seem to be a cultural tipping point giving , again, priority to freedom of expression”.
The announcement comes as Mark Zuckerberg has stepped up his efforts to curry favor with Donald Trump since his election in November 2024. Meta donated $1 million to the fund financing Donald Trump’s inauguration ceremonies in January. The group also named a Trump loyalist (Joel Kaplan) to head its public affairs business, and another (Ultimate Fighting Championship executive Dana White) to its board of directors.
Donald Trump was suspended from Facebook after January 6, 2021, but his account was reactivated at the beginning of 2023. Meta had also decided, in 2021, to reduce the place of political content on its platforms, while the Republicans and their support Elon Musk , owner of the X platform, have repeatedly complained about fact-checking programs, which they equate to censorship.
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