By Ashley Capoot and Jonathan Vanian – Video from Wall Street Journal
Meta on Tuesday announced it will eliminate its third-party fact-checking program to “restore free expression” and move to a “Community Notes” model, similar to the system that exists on Elon Musk’s platform X.
The company said Community Notes will be written and rated by contributing users to provide more context to posts across its platforms, and the feature will roll out in the U.S. over the next couple of months. The announcement marks Meta’s latest attempt to smooth over relations with Republican President-elect Donald Trump before he takes office.
Zuckerberg said the third-party fact-checkers have been “too politically biased” and have “destroyed more trust than they’ve created, especially in the U.S.”
Zuckerberg has had a rocky relationship with Trump over the years, with the president-elect and other Republicans claiming that Facebook and other sites censor conservative views. Trump more recently described Facebook as an “enemy of the people” in a March interview with CNBC.
Facebook aggressively removed “Stop the Steal” content in the wake of the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection, citing “continued attempts to organize events against the outcome of the U.S. presidential election that can lead to violence” on the social media platform.
Meta also levied a two-year suspension on Trump’s Facebook and Instagram accounts shortly after the company determined that the former president’s actions following the Jan. 6 riot in Washington, D.C., could potentially incite more violence.
Meta said it will simplify its content policies going forward by removing restrictions on subjects like immigration and gender and implementing a new approach to policy enforcement that will focus on illegal and high-severity violations. The company is moving its trust and safety and content moderation teams from California, a historically Democratic state, to Texas, a historically Republican state.
“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.
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This article originally appeared here and was republished with permission.
