Facebook and Instagram Say Goodbye To Fact-Checking

Mark Zuckerberg's face

Meta’s focusing on “free expression”

Meta is rethinking its efforts toward reigning in fake news and disinformation as President-elect Trump prepares to take office. On Tuesday, the company announced that it was scrapping its third-party fact-checking program on Facebook and Instagram for a “Community Notes” model similar to the one on X. 

A focus on “free expression”

In a video, Mark Zuckerberg said the tech giant will focus on “free expression,” citing “a cultural tipping point towards once again prioritizing speech.” He also announced plans to remove restrictions on often hot-button issues, such as immigration and gender. As part of these changes, content moderation teams will be moved from liberal California to the more conservative Texas.

“A gift to Donald Trump”

Trump praised the news, while others decried this reversal. Digital rights group Accountable Tech called it “a gift to Donald Trump and extremists around the world,” while the advocacy group Free Press said Zuckerberg is “saying yes to more lies, yes to more harassment, yes to more hate.”

Meta employees voice their concern

Meta employees expressed their outrage over the change on the company’s internal forum.

One worker said they were “extremely concerned” writing that it seems Meta is “sending a bigger, stronger message to people that facts no longer matter, and conflating that with a victory for free speech.”

Another commented that “simply absolving ourselves from the duty to at least try to create a safe and respective platform is a really sad direction to take.” 

Changes to Meta’s hateful conduct policy

In addition to its fact-checking update, Meta has changed its policy on hateful conduct, Wired reports. Now, users are allowed to post new kinds of content on the platform without facing any consequences. The company has crossed out the part of its policy that forbade referring to women as “household objects or property,” and “transgender or non-binary people as ‘it.’”

Meta will also allow “allegations of mental illness or abnormality when based on gender or sexual orientation, given political and religious discourse about transgenderism and homosexuality.”

A Meta spokesperson clarified that attacks on some groups, including those based on ethnicity, race and religion, remain forbidden.

President-elect Trump welcomed the changes, and attributed them to threats he’s made toward Zuckerberg in the past.