Less than two weeks before Donald Trump takes office, Meta, the company that owns Facebook and Instagram, announced a series of changes to its content moderation practices that effectively end its long-standing fact-checking program, a policy created to limit the spread of misinformation across its social media platforms.
“We consider the recent elections as a cultural turning point. We are returning to our roots and will focus on reducing mistakes, simplifying our policies, and paying attention to freedom of speech on our platforms,” it said.
For many analysts, this was another concession to Donald Trump, who has constantly accused Facebook of censoring free speech. He even threatened Zuckerberg before the election, saying that if the platform influenced the election through censorship, Zuckerberg would be arrested.
After Trump’s re-election, Zuckerberg met with the new president. Last week, Meta’s Chief Global Affairs Officer, Nick Clegg, announced his departure to be replaced by Joel Kaplan, a Republican who has supported claims that the platform has suppressed conservative voices.
After the meeting, Kaplan and Zuckerberg considered Trump a champion of free speech but did not mention any of the elected president’s attacks on Meta.
Zuckerberg said that fact-checking would be replaced by a “more comprehensive community notes system,” similar to the one implemented by Elon Musk after purchasing Twitter, later rebranded as X.
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