Wednesday Briefing
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Meta is ending its fact-checking program
Meta will stop using third-party fact-checkers on Facebook, Threads and Instagram, a policy once instituted to curtail the spread of misinformation across the tech company’s social media platforms. Meta will instead rely on users to add notes to posts that may be false or misleading.
The reversal is a stark sign of how Meta is repositioning itself for the Trump presidency. The company recently gave a heads-up to Trump officials about the change, according to a person with knowledge of the conversations. Mark Zuckerberg, the chief executive of Meta, also said on Monday that it had added to the company’s board Dana White, the head of Ultimate Fighting Championship and a longtime friend of Trump.
Zuckerberg said that the shift would begin in the U.S. in the coming months. “It’s time to get back to our roots around free expression,” he said. He conceded that the decision would result in more “bad stuff” on the platforms, calling it a “trade-off” for the reduction in the number of “innocent people’s posts and accounts that we accidentally take down.”
Reactions: Several digital rights groups condemned the decision, even as Donald Trump and his conservative allies praised the change. The president-elect has acknowledged that the decision was “probably” related to threats he had made against Meta and Zuckerberg.
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