Meta Ends Fact-Checking on Facebook and Instagram

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January 10, 2025

Meta ends fact-checking on Facebook and Instagram: What it means for data accuracy?

Mark Zuckerberg is changing the rules of the game on his platforms. Fact-checking will be ended, controversial topics will be permitted and a central team will be relocated from California to Texas.

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg wants to allow more expressions of opinion on his platforms with profound changes. Cooperation with professional fact-checkers will be ended and restrictions on controversial topics will be lifted, Zuckerberg announced on Tuesday. He sees Elon Musk and his platform X as a model for the restructuring.

In his announcement, Zuckerberg accused “governments and mainstream media” of “censoring more and more”. The Meta group will evade this, the Facebook CEO continued.

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Scrapping Fact Checkers Worldwide

Cooperation with fact checkers is no longer the right way: “The fact checkers were simply too politically biased and destroyed more trust than they created.”

Professional fact checkers have been checking content since then, which is intended to prevent false reports on the platforms.

Zuckerberg announced that he would end cooperation with fact checkers in general – starting with the USA. But he went a step further. He announced that he wanted to allow content that had previously been prohibited: “We will simplify our content policy and remove a number of restrictions on topics such as immigration and gender that are simply no longer appropriate.”

In doing so, the billionaire turned away from the culture of discussion that he had promoted for years. He said: “What began as a movement for more inclusion was increasingly used to suppress opinions and exclude dissidents, and that went too far.”

How Will Posting on Facebook Change?

In the future, only serious violations of the platform rules will be automatically deleted. “We will drastically reduce the extent of censorship on our platforms,” said Zuckerberg.

Zuckerberg wants to move the team that oversees the implementation of these rules from California, which is particularly liberal, to Texas. The CEO explained: “I think it will help us build trust if we do this work in places where there are fewer concerns about the bias of our teams.”

Community Notes on Facebook

In the future, Meta will be using a tool called community notes. The fact-checkers will be “replaced by community notes similar to X, starting in the USA,” Zuckerberg explained. Community notes are user comments on posts that can provide context and classification.

They are not based on a majority decision, but on the approval of users with different political backgrounds. Experts believe the tool is susceptible to manipulation. Google’s video platform YouTube has also recently been experimenting with it, but still has professional reviewers under contract.

Business Applauds the Bold Meta Move

Zuckerberg’s announcement did not cause great excitement on Wall Street: Meta shares had fallen by around two percent by late morning.

With the current steps, Zuckerberg is following the strategy of Elon Musk. Musk had introduced the community notes on X (formerly Twitter) after taking over the platform and at the same time fired fact-checking teams. Musk had also relocated several of his companies from California to Texas. While the two company bosses wanted to have a public boxing match last year, the tech companies have recently grown closer.

Zuckerberg and OpenAI Rift

Zuckerberg also took on Musk’s criticism of the competitor OpenAI. In a letter to California Attorney General Rob Bonta three weeks ago, Zuckerberg called for the transformation of OpenAI into a for-profit organization to be prevented. This is exactly what Musk had previously called for.

The Tesla boss commented on the announcement of Meta on his platform X with the words “That’s cool.”

Zuckerberg is making the realignment just a few days before the inauguration of US President Donald Trump. The Facebook founder had Trump’s accounts blocked after the attack on the Capitol in Washington, which had made Trump angry with the company.

As recently as March 2024, Trump had called Facebook an “enemy of humanity.” Now Zuckerberg is seeking proximity to the designated US president, donating money to him and giving important positions at Meta to confidants of the future president.

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What Does Meta Fact Checking Approach Mean for Europe?

Zuckerberg mentioned Europe in the same breath as censorship efforts in China. “In Europe, there are more and more laws that institutionalize censorship and make it difficult to develop anything innovative there.”

He is now counting on Trump’s help. “We will work with President Trump to take action against governments around the world that are taking action against American companies and pushing for more censorship,” Zuckerberg said.

In August, Republicans in the House of Representatives had already received an apology from Zuckerberg – for censoring false information about COVID under pressure from the Biden administration.

Zuckerberg and Trump spoke on the phone several times last summer to mend the strained relationship. In November, Zuckerberg met Trump at his Mar-a-Lago complex in Florida. Meta has also donated a million dollars to a fund for Donald Trump’s inauguration.

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A few days ago, the Meta Group promoted the influential Republican Joel Kaplan to the position of chief political officer. His predecessor, former British Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, left the company.

Zuckerberg sent Kaplan to the US television channel Fox News to explain the reorientation of his platforms. In the well-known morning show, which Donald Trump often watches personally, Kaplan was asked why Meta is making the changes now of all times.

Meta’s chief lobbyist replied: “The new president is convinced of free speech.” In the past, the company had been put under pressure to censor satire and humor, for example in discussions about the corona pandemic. Now Trump is allowing the company to return to its core values of free speech, Kaplan claimed.

US Companies Are Aligning Themselves with More Conservative Values

Facebook’s latest decision comes at a time when other US companies have already changed their practices in line with the new spirit in Washington. So far, the focus has been on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) measures.

For example, retail giant Walmart, automaker Ford, motorcycle manufacturer Harley Davidson and, most recently, fast-food chain McDonald’s have scaled back their DEI rules.

During the election campaign, Trump and other party representatives repeatedly denounced as “woke” those companies that have rules to protect minorities or give them preferential treatment when hiring.

Companies on Wall Street are also now feeling the pressure: the new asset manager Azoria Partners has launched a new ETF fund that only invests in companies that are apparently not “woke”. The “Azoria 500 Meritocracy ETF” is not supposed to invest in Starbucks, for example, because it takes diversity, equality and inclusion criteria into account when hiring.

Meta Aligns with Trump: What New Appointments Could Mean

As part of the new direction, Meta is adding three more members to the board of directors. Among them is Dana White, head of the martial arts league Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) and a prominent supporter of Trump.

With the new additions, Meta’s board of directors has grown to 13 members, including CEO and chairman Mark Zuckerberg. Zuckerberg has the majority of voting rights in Meta.

Zuckerberg has a personal friendship with martial arts manager White. Zuckerberg is a fan of the league and also practices martial arts himself. In February, the two appeared together at a UFC event. Zuckerberg apparently helped White integrate AI applications into his company.

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White has shaped his UFC into one of the world’s most popular and successful sports companies. He was one of Donald Trump’s most important supporters in the US election campaign.

Among other things, White appeared in Trump’s first Tiktok video. He is said to have helped to increase Trump’s popularity among young men. White also spoke at the Republican convention in the summer and at the event celebrating Trump’s election victory.

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Meta’s Turnaround is Causing Stir in European Politics

Zuckerberg founded Facebook in 2004. Thanks to a special share structure, he is de facto irrevocable at the top of the company. His latest announcement is a clear change of course in terms of moderating political topics.

In 2016, Facebook introduced fact-checking teams in the wake of Russian attempts to influence the US presidential election and took more action against political hate speech on its platform.

In 2019, for example, the company reported the removal of 3.39 billion fake accounts. Zuckerberg has repeatedly apologized publicly over the years for problematic developments in his networks.

In September 2024, however, Zuckerberg stated in a podcast interview that he was tired of feeling responsible for problems that were beyond his control – such as online hate speech in connection with the 2016 US elections.

Taking responsibility for this was his biggest mistake, a “political misjudgment” that spanned 20 years. The time for apologies, Zuckerberg made clear, was over.

Author Profile

Julie Gabriel

Julie Gabriel wears many hats—founder of Eyre.ai, product marketing veteran, and, most importantly, mom of two. At Eyre.ai, she’s on a mission to make communication smarter and more seamless with AI-powered tools that actually work for people (and not the other way around). With over 20 years in product marketing, Julie knows how to build solutions that not only solve problems but also resonate with users. Balancing the chaos of entrepreneurship and family life is her superpower—and she wouldn’t have it any other way.