Meta eliminates fact-checking team for X style Community Notes

Meta has announced that it is overhauling how it handles fact-checking. In a video yesterday, Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta – which owns Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp – explained the decision to cut its fact-checking team in favor of a system similar to Elon Musk’s X.

Rather than a dedicated team of people that ensure posts made on Facebook are factual, it will opt to use something akin to Community Notes. On X (formerly Twitter), Community Notes allows users to add context or fact-check posts with information. This is then voted on and eventually tied to the post directly for anyone to see.

Zuckerberg labeled the fact-checkers as “politically biased”, with the idea that a crowdsourced fact-checking initiative across its platforms aiming to be more neutral.

However, Community Notes on X have been criticized as it often devolves into users arguing with each other or providing false information to feed their narrative.

In December 2023, Musk slammed his own system as being “gamed by state actors” after he questioned the safety of an apparent journalist. The person in question is a YouTuber and dating coach who now posts pro-Russian content.

Interesting. This Note is being gamed by state actors. Will be helpful in figuring who they are.

Thanks for jumping in the honey pot, guys lmao!

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 10, 2023

The move comes as Zuckerberg – along with the tech industry – tries to cozy up to incoming President, Donald Trump. Gaining favor with Trump is vital, as his second term is poised to bring radical changes to America.

Meta banned Trump after the 2021 Capitol riots, but Zuckerberg has been seen at the president’s Mar-a-Lago resort and recently donated $1 million to the inauguration. He was also the target of conservative ire during the first term of the Trump presidency, as he introduced the fact-checking teams.

This is because more often than not, conservative groups on the platform and Trump himself would post disinformation to Facebook.

Part of this pivot includes adding Dana White, a known Trump ally and head of combat sport UFC, to the Meta board of directors. This has been met with internal criticism, which has been reported to have been suppressed and deleted by Meta higher-ups.

The overhaul includes sweeping changes to Meta’s rules of what’s allowed to be said on the platforms without the risk of bans. These have been further lambasted, as they now allow for discrimination against LGBTQ+ groups, namely transgender individuals who can now be safely labeled as having mental illnesses.

Zuckerberg states that he “started building social media to give people a voice.” However, Facebook actually got its start as FaceMash, a website that ranked women on his college campus by attractiveness. He testified this to Congress.

.@USRepLong: "What was FaceMash and is it still up and running?"

Mark Zuckerberg: “No Congressman, FaceMash was a prank website that I launched in college, in my dorm room, before I started Facebook." pic.twitter.com/W1KK99ljrF

— Dan Linden (@DanLinden) April 11, 2018

Featured image: Meta, Gage Skidmore, X

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