Meta to end fact-checking program on Facebook and Instagram: NPR

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced Tuesday that the social media company, which owns Facebook and Instagram, would stop working with third-party fact-checking organizations.

Echoing arguments long used by President-elect Donald Trump and his allies, Zuckerberg said in a video that the company’s approach to content moderation too often results in “censorship.”

“After Trump’s election in 2016, mainstream media wrote nonstop about how misinformation posed a threat to democracy. We tried in good faith to address these concerns without becoming the arbiters of truth,” Zuckerberg said. “But the fact-checkers have simply been too politically biased and have destroyed more trust than they have created, especially in the United States”

Meta established one of the most extensive partnerships with fact-checkers after the 2016 presidential election, during which Russia spread false claims on Facebook and other online platforms. The company created what has become a standard for how technology platforms limit the spread of lies and misleading information.

But the 2020 election and the COVID pandemic have accelerated the backlash from conservatives, who portray content moderation as a form of censorship. Facebook, along with Twitter and YouTube, banned Trump from their platforms after the January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol, but ultimately allowed him to return before his second run in the election. In recent years, fact checkers, false narrative researchers and content moderation programs on social media have become targets of investigations and legal challenges by the Republican-led Congress.

Zuckerberg said his views on content moderation have changed. Meta made “too many mistakes” in how it enforced its content policies, he said, and pointed to Trump’s election to a second term as “a cultural turning point toward a new priority to speech.

“So we will return to our roots, focus on reducing errors, simplify our policies and restore freedom of expression on our platforms,” he said.

Meta said that instead of working with third-party fact-checkers, it would move to a “community notes” program in which users write and rate notes that appear alongside specific posts. It’s similar to the approach championed by Elon Musk on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter.

Meta also said it would change how it enforces its policies, relying less on automated systems except for “illegal and high-severity violations,” including terrorism, child sexual exploitation and fraud. The company’s U.S. content moderation team will move from California to Texas. The move should “help us build trust to do this work in places where there is less concern about bias among our teams,” Zuckerberg said.

Fact-checkers who have worked with Meta for years pushed back against Zuckerberg’s accusation of bias.

“It was particularly troubling to see him echo allegations of bias against fact-checkers, because he knows those who participated in his program were signatories to a code of principles that requires them to be transparent and nonpartisan ” said Bill Adair, co-founder of the International Fact-Checking Network. He founded PolitiFact, an early participant in Facebook’s third-party fact-checking program, which he left in 2020.

“Meta, until this morning, has always valued the independence of fact-checkers,” Adair said.

Because Meta pays fact-checkers for their work, some fact-checking organizations — most of which are nonprofits — rely heavily on the company to survive. “We will see fewer fact-checking reports published and fewer fact-checkers operating,” said Angie Drobnic Holan, director of the International Fact Checking Network.

“I think fact-checking programs on social media have been very positive in helping to reduce hoax content and conspiracy theories. And to see it so quickly reduced in this way without a lot of discussion is disappointing,” said Holan.

Republicans hailed the announcement as validating their long-standing claims that Meta and other tech companies are biased against conservatives.

“Meta finally admits to censoring the speech…what a great birthday present to wake up to and a huge victory for free speech,” Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) posted on X on Monday.