The co-chair of the independent body that reviews content on Facebook and Instagram said she was “very concerned” about how minority groups would be affected by parent company Meta’s decision to drop fact-checking.
Helle Thorning-Schmidt, of Meta’s supervisory board, told the BBC that she welcomed aspects of the shake-up, which will see users decide on the accuracy of posts via X-style “community notes”.
However, speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, she said there were “big problems” with what was announced, including the potential impact on the LGBTQ+ community, as well as gender and trans rights.
“We see many cases where hate speech can lead to harm in real life, so we will be watching that space very carefully,” she added.
In the published video in a post on the company’s blog on Tuesday, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said the decision was motivated by a “return to our roots around freedom of expression.”
He said the third-party fact-checkers currently used by the company are “too politically biased,” meaning too many users are “censored.”
The decision raised questions about the survival of the board – funded by the Met and set up by the then global affairs chairman, Sir Nick Clegg, who announced that he was leaving the company less than a week ago.
Ms Thorning-Schmidt, a former prime minister of Denmark, insisted that changes to fact-checking meant it was needed more than ever.
“That’s why it’s good that we have an oversight committee that can discuss this in a transparent way with the Met,” she said.
She welcomed some of Meta’s announcements on moderation, including her aim to find a new way of fact-checking after there were cases of “over-enforcement”, with people ending up in “Facebook jail”.
“Kiss with Trump”
While Meta says the move – which is initially being rolled out in the US – is about free speech, others have suggested it is an attempt to get closer to the incoming Trump administration and catch up with the access and influence it enjoys another tech titan, Elon Musk.
Tech journalist and author Kara Swisher told the BBC it was the “most cynical move” she had seen Mr Zuckerberg make in the “many years” she had been covering him.
“Facebook is doing everything in its self-interest,” she said.
“He wants to kiss Donald Trump and catch up with Elon Musk in the act.”
While campaigners against online hate speech reacted with dismay to the changesome free speech advocates welcomed the news.
US free speech group Fire said: “Meta’s announcement shows the marketplace of ideas at work. Users want a social media platform that doesn’t suppress political content or use top-down fact-checking.
“These changes will hopefully result in less arbitrary moderation decisions and more free speech on Meta’s platforms.”
Speaking after the changes were announced, Trump said at a press conference that he was impressed by Mr. Zuckerberg and that Meta “has come a long way”.
Asked if Zuckerberg was “directly responding” to threats made by Trump in the past, the future US president replied: “Probably.”
Exodus of advertisers
Zuckerberg acknowledged on Tuesday that there is some risk for the company in changing strategy.
“This means we’ll catch less bad stuff, but we’ll also reduce the number of innocent people’s posts and accounts we accidentally take down,” he said in his video message.
X’s move to a more liberal approach to content moderation has contributed greatly conflict with advertisers.
Jasmine Enberg, an analyst at Insider Intelligence, said this is a risk for Meta as well.
“Meta’s sheer size and powerful ad platform somewhat insulates it from the exodus of users and advertisers like X,” she told the BBC.
“But brand safety remains a key factor in determining where advertisers spend their budgets — any big drop in engagement could hurt Meta’s ad business, given the intense competition for users and advertising revenue.”
