The boss of Meta, Mark Zuckerberg, announced the end of “fact checking” by third parties on Facebook and Instagram. This major turnaround regarding the verification of information published on these two social networks raises concerns, particularly in Europe. The Union warns: “platforms must comply with the rules”. Zuckerberg denounces “censorship”.
“Social media platforms play a huge role in people’s daily lives, but they also have enormous social and economic importance and influence” declared, in a post on X, Henna Virkkunen, executive vice-president of the European Commission, in charge of technological sovereignty. And added: “In Europe, we want to create a safe and fair digital environment. Our task is to ensure that the rights of European citizens are respected and that our legislation is enforced“.
Without naming him, Henna Virkkunen speaks here to Mark Zuckerberg, boss of Meta. The latter has, in recent days, caused a lot of concern by announcing that it would put an end to fact-checking on its social networks, Facebook and Instagram, recalls 20 Minutes. Instead of verifying information by people specially trained for this exercise, Zuckerberg now announces that he prefers the “Community Note” model, already in force on Elon Musk’s social network, X (formerly Twitter). This system consists of entrusting the users themselves with the responsibility of moderating the posts.
Zuckerberg’s call to Donald Trump
In the wake of this announcement, Mark Zuckerberg accused Europe of “censure“, thus following in the footsteps of Elon Musk. The latter never misses an opportunity to publicly criticize European regulations in the digital field, in the name of freedom of expression – where the European Union aims to fight against fake news The boss of Meta therefore joins this anti-regulation crusade by abandoning any rigorous moderation of content.
In an interview with podcaster Joe Rogan on Friday, Mark Zuckerberg called on Trump to act to defend big US tech companies against EU sanctions. “I think it’s a strategic advantage for the United States to have many of the strongest companies in the world. And I think it should be part of the American strategy going forward to defend that” he declared. For many observers, this turnaround by Mark Zuckerberg is a way of rallying behind Donald Trump’s policies.
published on January 11 at 9:36 p.m., Sabrina Guintini, 6Médias
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