By Katie Paul, Supantha Mukherjee and Deborah Mary Sophia
(Reuters) – Social media giant Meta Platforms (NASDAQ: ) on Tuesday scrapped its U.S. fact-checking program and eased restrictions on debate over contentious topics such as immigration and gender identity, bowing to criticism from conservatives as Donald Trump prepares to take office USA president for the second time.
The move is Meta’s biggest overhaul of its approach to managing political content on its services in recent memory, and comes after CEO Mark Zuckerberg signaled a desire to mend conflicts with the new administration.
The changes will affect Facebook, Instagram and Threads, the world’s three largest social media platforms with more than 3 billion users worldwide.
Last week, Meta promoted Republican policy executive Joel Kaplan to head of global affairs, and on Monday announced that it had tapped Dana White, the Ultimate Fighting Championship executive and a close friend of President-elect Trump, to its board of directors.
“We’ve reached a point where there’s just too much wrong and too much censorship. It’s time to get back to our roots around freedom of expression,” Zuckerberg said in the video.
He acknowledged the role of the recent US election in his thinking, saying it “feels like a cultural tipping point, towards re-prioritizing speech”.
Instead of a formal fact-checking program to address questionable claims posted on Meta’s platforms, Zuckerberg instead plans to implement a “community notes” system similar to the one used on Elon Musk-owned X, formerly known as Twitter.
Meta will also focus its automated systems on removing “high-severity violations” and illegal content such as terrorism and illicit drugs, Zuckerberg said. It will stop proactively scanning for other types of policy violations like hate speech and only review such posts in response to user reports.
The company will move security teams that oversee content policy and review out of California, including to Texas, he added.
A Meta spokesman declined to say which specific teams will move to Texas or whether any will move to other locations. The spokesman also declined to cite examples of fact-checkers’ errors or bias.
‘COMES AS A SHOCK’
The shutdown of the fact-checking program, which began in 2016, caught partner organizations by surprise.
“We didn’t know this move was happening and it’s a shock to us. This is definitely going to affect us,” said Jesse Stiller, editor-in-chief at Check Your Fact.
The head of the International Fact-Checking Network, Angie Drobnic Holan, disputed Zuckerberg’s characterization of its members as biased or censorious.
“Fact-checking journalism has never censored or removed posts; it has added information and context to controversial claims and exposed false content and conspiracies. The fact-checkers used by Meta follow a Code of Principles that requires impartiality and transparency,” she said in a statement.
Other partners, including AFP and USA Today, did not immediately respond to requests for comment, while Reuters declined to comment. Meta’s independent supervisory board welcomed the move.
Zuckerberg has expressed regret in recent months about certain content moderation practices on topics including COVID-19. Target also donated $1 million to Trump’s inaugural fund, a departure from past practice.
“This is a major step backwards for content moderation at a time when misinformation and harmful content are evolving faster than ever,” said Ross Burley, co-founder of the nonprofit Center for Information Resilience.
“This move appears to be more about political pandering than smart policy.”
For now, Meta is only planning changes for the U.S. market, with no immediate plans to end its fact-checking program in places like the European Union that take a more active approach to regulating tech companies, a spokesman told Reuters.
Musk’s X is already under investigation by the European Commission for the spread of illegal content in the EU and the effectiveness of measures taken to combat information manipulation, including the “Community Notes” system.
The commission launched its investigation in December 2023, a few months after X launched the feature. A spokesman for the Commission said it had taken note of Meta’s announcement and was continuing to monitor the company’s compliance with EU regulations.
The European Union’s Digital Services Act came into force in 2023 and requires very large internet platforms such as X and Facebook to combat illegal content and risks to public safety.
The law imposes rules on content moderation, user privacy and transparency. Any company found in violation faces a fine of up to 6% of its global revenue.
Meta said it will begin phasing out Community Notes in the US over the next few months and refine the model over the course of the year.
It will allow users to call out posts that are potentially misleading and need more context, rather than shifting the responsibility to independent fact-checking organizations and experts.
Meta said it will not intervene in adding community notes to posts on its platforms.
