Meta Kills Controversial Program After Criticism

Mark Zuckerberg announced in a video posted on Tuesday morning that Meta Platforms Inc. is rolling back its content moderation and fact-checking policies in a bid to “restore free expression” on the platform formerly known as Facebook, in what's sure to be a controversial move in the already fraught debate over information sharing on the platform.

Zuckerberg lamented that as misinformation has spread online, “governments and legacy media have pushed to censor more and more.” “We’ve reached a point where it’s just too many mistakes and too much censorship,” he continued. “The recent elections also feel like a cultural tipping point towards, once again, prioritizing speech. So we’re gonna get back to our roots and focus on reducing mistakes, simplifying our policies, and restoring free expression on our platforms.”

Meta will segue away from proper fact-checking as it adopts a community notes policy similar to what X (formerly Twitter) instituted after Elon Musk took over the company. Zuckerberg admitted that while bringing in fact checkers began as an earnest attempt at curbing misinformation, it didn’t go as planned.

“Starting in the U.S. after Trump first got elected in 2016, the legacy media wrote non-stop about how misinformation was a threat to democracy,” Zuckerberg said. “We tried, in good faith, to address those concerns without becoming the arbiters of truth, but the fact checkers have just been too politically biased and have destroyed more trust than they’ve created, especially in the U.S.”

Zuckerberg also revealed that he’ll be working directly with Trump to relieve restrictions on other social media sites across the globe, including places like China where Meta is banned. “We’re going to work with President Trump to push back on governments around the world that are going after American companies and pushing to censor more,” he said. “The only way that we can push back on this global trend is with the support of the U.S. government…now we have the opportunity to restore free expression, and I am excited to take it.”

While its fact-checking program was controversial, Facebook has also come under fire in the past for allowing misinformation and hate speech to spread unchecked on its platforms, including some linked to ethnic and sectarian violence in countries like Myanmar and Ethiopia. The company has struggled to define its role in the information ecosystem, more recently drawing the ire of publishers after it chose to de-emphasize news and politics content altogether.