Meta downgrading fact checking prior to Trump being back in White House
Disinformation is again a global media focus after Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s announcement that his social media like Facebook, Instagram and Threads will start replacing its third-party fact checking in the US with a crowdsourced fact checking. This means that a couple of weeks prior to Donald Trump’s return to the White House is downgrading its fact checking to a level similar to how X has done under the ownership of Trump ally Elon Musk. Trump has acknowledged that the decision was “probably” related to threats he had made against Meta and Zuckerberg, the Guardian reports.
The co-chairs of Meta’s oversight board said: “We look forward to working with Meta in the coming weeks to understand the changes in greater detail, ensuring its new approach can be as effective and speech-friendly as possible.”
“It is essential that decisions on content are taken with maximum input from voices outside of Meta, including of the people who use its platforms every day.”
Just days earlier, Meta announced that former UK deputy prime minister Nick Clegg was stepping down as Meta’s president of global affairs to be replaced by Joel Kaplan.
Dana White, CEO of the Ultimate Fighting Championship and a prominent Trump supporter, has been appointed to the Meta board.
Trump himself was banned by Meta for his role in the storming of Capitolium when it was about to confirm the fact that Trump had lost and Joe Biden had won the presidential election four years ago.
It has been announced that Meta has now donated to Trump’s new inauguration fund.
The downgrading has been met with worries about increased spread of disinformation on huge social media. The change announced is for the US but a question is how the policy would work with the European Union’s Digital Services Act addressing big tech’s illegal content, transparent advertising and disinformation.
Using misinformation and disinformation to further widen societal and political divides is the most severe global risk over the next two years, World Economic Forum’s Global Risk Report forecasts.
“It can undermine the legitimacy of newly elected governments and result in unrest like violent protests, hate crime, civil confrontation and terrorism.”
“Indeed, the proliferation of misinformation and disinformation may be leveraged to strengthen digital authoritarianism and the use of technology to control citizens.”
“Governments themselves will be increasingly in a position to determine what is true, potentially allowing political parties to monopolize the public discourse and suppress dissenting voices, including journalists and opponents.”
“Beyond elections, perceptions of reality are likely to also become more polarized, infiltrating the public discourse on issues ranging from public health to social justice. However, as truth is undermined, the risk of domestic propaganda and censorship will also rise in turn.”
An UNESCO survey comprising 16 countries has shown that 85% of citizens are worried about the impact of disinformation and 87% believe that it has already had a major impact on the political life in their country.
“The use of social media as a daily source of information has rapidly grown over the past 15 years, to the point of now surpassing print media, radio, and even television”, the UNESCO report says.
Zuckerberg announced the change on his Facebook page describing it as a move to “dramatically reduce the amount of censorship”.
“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 US.”
Meta’s new global policy chief Joel Kaplan gave an exclusive interview to Fox News
“We’re eliminating the third-party fact checking system. [It was] well-intentioned at the outset, but there’s just been too much political bias in what they choose to fact-check and how.”
“The idea was they were independent fact checkers, but they’ve just been too biased.”
In a Facebook blog post, Kaplan wrote, “Experts, like everyone else, have their own biases and perspectives…Over time we ended up with too much content being fact checked that people would understand to be legitimate political speech and debate.”
Among media expressing concern is Paris-based global news agency Agence France-Presse (AFP) that runs one of the world’s largest network of fact checkers:
“It’s a hard hit for the fact checking community and journalism. We’re assessing the situation.”
“In all the years we have been part of the partnership, we or the IFCN never received any complaints from Meta about any political bias, so we were quite surprised by this statement,” said Maarten Schenk, COO of fact checking Lead Stories, one of Meta’s third-party fact checking partners.
Human rights group Global Witness said: “Zuckerberg’s announcement is a blatant attempt to cozy up to the incoming Trump administration – with harmful implications. These changes will make it more dangerous for women, LGBT+ people, people of colour, scientists and activists to speak out online, where they already face disproportionate harassment and attacks.”
Angie Drobnic Holan, director of the International Fact-Checking Network which certified the fact checkers used by Meta, denied fact checkers had been biased and said: “That attack line comes from those who feel they should be able to exaggerate and lie without rebuttal or contradiction.”
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