Meta is abandoning its fact-checking program on its social media platforms and easing the restrictions on the free expression of opinions, Mark Zuckerberg, the head of the American IT giant, announced on Tuesday.
In a video, the businessman announced that they will no longer use the work of external fact-checkers, but the one employed by the social media site X community posts (community notes) method, the essence of which is that the users themselves can indicate if they object to a published content. “We are returning to our roots, focusing on reducing errors, simplifying our operating policies and restoring freedom of expression on our platforms,” said the founder of Meta, known for Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and the Threads platform, among others.
Meta launched its fact-checking program after the 2016 US presidential election, employing external experts to manage content published on its platforms. The process was accompanied by serious debates, and the social medium was criticized on several occasions for acting under political pressure, and the fact-checking it used was selective and largely serves to silence “conservative” opinions. The company’s executives recently admitted that their pursuit went too far.
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In an interview with Fox News Digital, Joel Kaplan, global director of Meta, recalled that they turned to independent, third-party actors as part of the fact-checking program, but it turned out that there is too much political bias in which content is selected for fact-checking, and not all content is covered. . He said that instead of turning to experts, in the future they will rely on the community, on the fact that users can make their own conclusions about what they read.
Joel Kaplan also reported that they are also making changes to Meta’s internal content moderation policies, specifically regarding rules that they feel are “too restrictive and don’t allow enough dialogue around sensitive topics like immigration, transgender, and gender.” (…) We want to ensure that the dialogue can take place freely, without fear of censorship, on the interface”, said Meta’s global director.
Joel Kaplan called the coming inauguration of the Trump administration a real opportunity to make changes, because “an administration is coming into office that would do nothing but pressure businesses for censorship and is a huge supporter of free speech.” Community content control is first passed through Meta’s United States interfaces.
Source: nepszava.hu
