The company Meta, which owns the social networks Facebook and Instagramannounced on Tuesday that terminates independent third-party fact-checking on its platforms. It will now leave such verification to the users, similar to how it is currently done Elon Musk’s X social network. TASR informs about it based on AP and AFP reports.
“We will get rid of fact checkers who have been too politically biased and have destroyed more trust than they have created, especially in the US.” Meta founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg reported in a post on social networks. He added that the company in this regard will switch to a system similar to that used by the X network (formerly Twitter), launching it first only in the US.
“We’re seeing this approach work at Company X – where they’re empowering their community (users) to decide when posts are potentially misleading and need broader context,” said Joel Kaplan, Meta’s head of global affairs. Zuckerberg admitted that the announced changes are also a consequence of Donald Trump’s victory in the US presidential elections, approximates AP. According to him, the elections represented a kind of cultural turning point leading to a renewed prioritization of freedom of speech.
Meta stated that with ‘went too far’ with its content management programwhile she made “too many mistakes” and censored too much content. In addition, the company announced that it plans to remove restrictions on certain topics that are part of normal dialogue and focus more on “very serious violations” of the rules, such as for example terrorism, sexual abuse of children or drugs.
Trump has been a longtime critic of Metawhom he accuses of being biased against him. Trump’s Facebook following the Jan. 6, 2021 attacks on the Capitol by his supporters blocked the account who, however, renewed it at the beginning of 2023. However, according to AFP, Zuckerberg is now trying to reconcile with Trump since his re-election, while Meta is even donating a million dollars to Trump’s inauguration and accompanying events on January 20.
