Less than two weeks after the new Trump administration took office, Meta chief Mark Zuckerberg announced a sweeping set of policy changes that will remove fact-checkers from the company’s platform and ease restrictions on the posts its users can share.
Zuckerberg said the changes are intended to combat political “bias” and reduce “censorship” — echoing arguments President-elect Donald Trump and his supporters have long made about the platform.
Instead of fact-checkers, Facebook will employ a “community notes” model similar to the one used in X.
As it works in X, Community Notes allows users to add context and corrections to other people’s posts, although studies show that may be slow And Covers a variety of topics than professional fact-checking.
Zuckerberg also said the site would relax its policies for moderating posts and allow more content including “immigration and gender” rather than taking them down. (According to a Wired reviewSome of these changes appear to have already taken effect.)
For users interested in seeing more political content, Zuckerberg noted that Meta plans to reintroduce more of these posts into people’s feeds.
In a five-minute video announcing the changes, Zuckerberg said the fact-checkers Facebook had worked with were “too politically biased” and damaged user trust, and blasted the Biden administration for “censorship” against Meta. (Zuckerberg did not specify what he meant by this claim, Although technology companies (There have been previous requests from the Biden administration to remove posts related to Covid-19 misinformation and election fraud.)
Broadly, Matter’s announcement signals a willingness among tech companies to cater to Trump as they seek to preserve their business prospects and avoid political retaliation from a frequent, harsh critic. Its changes in content moderation have serious implications for posts and misinformation that can spread across its platforms, including Facebook, Instagram and Threads.
“I suspect we will see an increase in false and misleading information on a number of topics, because there will be an incentive for those who want to spread such content,” said Claire Wardle, associate professor of communications at Cornell University. Vox.
What did Meta do?
Meta’s recent changes coincide with other moves Zuckerberg has made in an apparent effort to get into Trump’s good graces, including a personal visit and appointment at Mar-a-Lago. Dana WhiteUltimate Fighting Championship CEO and Trump ally, Mater to the board of directors.
Below are more details on the changes Zuckerberg just announced, as well as the recent steps he’s taken
Content moderation changes
- Replacing fact-checkers with community notes: Meta was Worked with 90 different independent organizations To verify the authenticity of the spread on its platform. These fact-checkers will add warning labels to false content and meta will also reduce the distribution of those posts. Zuckerberg accused the fact-checkers of being politically biased, while not providing any examples, and said they would be replaced with a community notes system that would be phased in over the coming months.
- Reducing content restrictions on topics such as “Immigration and Gender:”. Zuckerberg said the platforms will focus on removing posts that contain “illegal and high-severity violations” and may have flagged more posts beforehand. Effectively, the agency is easing content moderation in general and taking fewer posts on hot-button political issues.
- Bringing back politics content: Meta previously downgraded politics content and reduced its distribution on its platform, citing user requests This content is less in their feed. Zuckerberg announced that Meta will bring political content back into users’ feeds due to demand for change.
- Moving Content and Moderation Team: In another bid to address alleged political bias, Zuckerberg said Meta’s content moderation team would move from California to Texas.
- Working with Trump to Counter Censorship in Other Countries: Zuckerberg has pledged to cooperate with Trump to fight censorship and regulation in other countries, pointing to the blocking of Meta apps in China and claiming European technology policies are stifling innovation.
Donating to the Trump Inauguration Fund and visiting Mar-a-Lago: Meta was among the tech companies that donated $1 million to Trump’s inaugural fund. Amazon has, too, and Apple CEO Tim Cook and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman have made comparable personal donations. Zuckerberg, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos and Google’s Sergey Brin are also among the tech chiefs who have had personal visits with Trump at Mar-a-Lago.
Silicon Valley is bending the knee — with troubling consequences
As Vox’s Nicole Naria previously reported, Zuckerberg is far from the only tech CEO trying to build a friendly relationship with Trump as his second term approaches. Bezos and others Killed the Washington Post’s editorial endorsement of Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris – did the same.
Many of these efforts are driven by the goal of maintaining a friendlier regulatory climate, Naria reports, whether it’s less antitrust scrutiny or more consideration for government contracts.
Efforts by businesses to build relationships between administrations are common. But the moves by Zuckerberg and Bezos have raised additional concerns, given their influence on posts read by millions and in Zuckerberg’s case.
Zuckerberg’s moves could shape the type of content that spreads on Facebook, Instagram and threads, enabling misinformation to flourish unchecked. Not only will Facebook remove fact-checkers, but by dialing back moderation on issues like immigration and gender identity, which have already become the subject of rampant right-wing conspiracy theories, it could exacerbate the existing inaccuracy- and misinformation problem.
X, formerly known as Twitter, has also rolled back its content moderation since Trump ally and Tesla CEO Elon Musk took over the site in late 2022. Since then, Musk has promoted Community Notes as a way to crowd-source data-checking.
Eric Nisbett, professor of policy analysis and communication at Northwestern University, said Community Note has been a mixed bag since it took effect. Researchers have found that users can be trusted For example, context provided via community notes rather than a basic flag from a fact-checker. But community notes are often slower than professional fact-checkers, meaning a false post can go viral before being checked. Additionally, community notes rely on the expertise and interests of the site’s users, while professional fact-checkers can offer quick expertise on a wide range of key topics.
Similar results can be predicted to meet content moderation changes in X since Mask’s takeover. A USC Study of English-Language Posts in X From January 2022 to June 2023, hate speech on the site increased by 50 percent during that time, with the use of transphobic slurs increasing by 260 percent. Musk fired several content moderators when he took over in 2022 and began overhauling the platform’s procedures, including lifting suspensions for previously banned accounts.
“Mark Zuckerberg argues that his role model for this change is Elon Musk and what he did on Twitter. So we can look to Twitter for answers, right? And if we do, we see chaos,” said Yotam Ofir, a University of Buffalo communications professor who studies misinformation.
The potential spread of more misinformation and hateful content on the Meta platform is worrisome, Nisbett told Vox, and could have a significant impact on the quality of US democracy. Access to accurate information and the ability to hold political leaders accountable is an important differentiator for democratic states, he said, and when falsehoods are allowed to proliferate and spread, it undermines people’s access to credible information and their ability to confront their political leaders.
Several recent incidents have illustrated the severe impact of such misinformation. In September, Trump expanded on a lie about Haitian immigrants eating pets in Springfield, Ohio, which started on Facebook. This lie led to property damage and threats against the city’s Haitian population. Trump’s lies about FEMA aid workers in North Carolina following the devastation of Hurricane Helen also spread on social media, fueling distrust of the agency and even Threats of violence against government employees.
Without strong guards on Facebook, Instagram and threads, such misinformation can spread further and have more dangerous consequences.
