Meta is making major changes to its content moderation, eliminating its fact-checking program and bringing more political conversations back to feeds on Facebook, Threads and Instagram, as part of a bid by CEO Mark Zuckerberg to “restore free expression” on its platforms.
Zuckerberg unveiled the changes in a video and text posts on Meta’s platforms this afternoon.
In the statement, Zuckerberg lamented that amid the debates around the harms from online content, too much censorship was now taking place: “We’ve reached a point where it’s just too many mistakes and too much censorship,” he said. “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.”
That will include the elimination of fact-checking programs in a move to a community notes model, similar to what Elon Musk’s rival X uses. Meta’s platforms will also allow users to freely discuss topics that previously are subject to restrictions, including discussions around “immigration, gender identity and gender.”
Zuckerberg said that while the decision to introduce fact checkers was made with good intentions, it had backfired.
“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.”
Meta will also move its trust and safety and content moderation teams out of California, with content review to be based in Texas. “As we work to promote free expression, I think that will help us build trust to do this work in places where there is less concern about the bias of our teams,” Zuckerberg said.
And perhaps most notably, Zuckerberg said that he wants to work directly with President Trump to combat restrictions on social platforms in other countries around the world.
“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,” Zuckerberg said, noting the restrictions Meta faces, including some outright bans in places like China. “The only way that we can push back on this global trend is with the support of the U.S. government, and that’s why it’s been so difficult over the past four years, when even the U.S. government has pushed for censorship by going after us and other American companies, it has emboldened other governments to go even further, but now we have the opportunity to restore free expression, and I am excited to take it.”
The timing of the announcement is particularly interesting, coming as it does in the midst of widespread criticism, particularly across Europe, for inflammatory, misleading, and potentially dangerous comments made by Musk on his own social media platform. Threads, meanwhile, was launched in 2023 in part as a direct response to the perceived growth of misinformation, political negativity and general aggression that has come to personify Twitter (now X) in the Musk era.
Today’s announcement also coincided with the departure of former Sheffield MP and LibDem leader Nick Clegg as Meta’s president of global affairs. Clegg has been replaced by prominent Republican, Trump ally and former George W Bush advisor, Joel Kaplan.
