Meta (Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp) will end its fact-checking program, its founder and boss Mark Zuckerberg announced on Tuesday. This is a major setback in its content moderation policy.
“We will get rid of fact-checkers and replace them with community ratings, similar to X, starting with the United States,” Mark Zuckerberg said in a message on social networks.
According to Mark Zuckerberg, “auditors have been too politically oriented and have done more to reduce trust than to improve it, particularly in the United States.”
>> Read also: Is fact checking the answer to fake news?
“Priority to freedom of expression”
Meta’s announcement comes as Republicans and the owner of rival social network X, Elon Musk, have repeatedly complained about fact-checking programs, which they liken to censorship.
“The recent elections seem to be a cultural tipping point giving, once again, priority to freedom of expression,” said the boss of Meta.
At the same time, the group should review and “simplify” its rules concerning content on all of its platforms and “put an end to a certain number of limits concerning subjects, such as immigration and gender, which do not are more in the dominant discourses.
Gestures in favor of the American president-elect
The announcement comes as Mark Zuckerberg has made numerous gestures towards President-elect Donald Trump, notably through a donation of one million dollars for the fund financing the inauguration ceremonies of the mandate, scheduled for January 20.
The Republican candidate had been particularly critical of Meta and his boss in recent years, accusing the company of bias and supporting progressive speeches. Donald Trump was suspended from Facebook after the attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021, but his account was reactivated in early 2023.
>> Read on this subject: Meta ends special conditions imposed on Donald Trump on Facebook and Instagram
Donald Trump loyalists at Meta
Meta has appointed a Donald Trump loyalist, Joel Kaplan, to head its public affairs, replacing former British Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, who resigned.
“Too much harmless content has been censored, too many people have been unfairly locked in Facebook’s ‘prison,’” Joel Kaplan said in a statement, insisting that the current approach had gone “too far.”
Another gesture of appeasement, the appointment of the head of the Ultimate Fighting Championship Dana White, also close to Donald Trump, to the board of directors of Meta.
The company now wants to take a more personalized approach, giving users greater control over how much political content they want to see on Facebook, Instagram or Threads.
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