Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta Platforms, which operates Facebook and Instagram, announced that ahead of the inauguration of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump, the company will abolish third-party 'fact-checking' on its platforms in the United States that identifies fake news and verifies facts.
According to Meta, CEO Zuckerberg stated in a five-minute video message released on the company's homepage on the 7th (local time), "We want to return to our roots to reduce mistakes, simplify policies, and focus on restoring freedom of expression on the platform."
Specifically, he said, "We will remove fact-checkers in the U.S.," and explained, "We will replace them with something similar to X's (formerly Twitter) 'Community Notes'." Community Notes, created by X as a measure against fake news, is characterized by allowing users to add comments, thereby adding warnings and context to the content.
Zuckerberg also claimed, "Fact-checkers (on Facebook and others) have been too politically biased and have damaged trust rather than creating it." Additionally, he mentioned that Meta's content review team will be relocated from California to Texas, describing it as "a place with fewer concerns about team bias."
He also said that restrictions on certain topics such as immigration and gender identity will be lifted, while focusing on illegal and highly severe content. Zuckerberg elaborated, "This means we will detect less bad content, but it also means reducing the number of posts and accounts of innocent people who are mistakenly deleted." According to Meta, millions of pieces of content were deleted daily as of December last year, accounting for less than 1% of the total. However, Meta estimates that 1 to 2 out of every 10 deleted pieces of content may not actually violate policies.
Along with this, Zuckerberg emphasized, "We will cooperate with President-elect Trump to counter global governments targeting U.S. companies and pushing for more censorship." Referring to his 2019 Georgetown University speech emphasizing freedom of expression, he said, "Last November's U.S. election felt like another cultural turning point that valued this." He claimed that this policy shift is also an attempt to return to a commitment to freedom of expression, just like then.
Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta Platforms, announced on the 7th (local time) through a video message that fact-checking and other measures will be discontinued on Meta's platforms in the United States, including Facebook. Meta Platforms homepage
This policy shift by Meta is analyzed as accepting the demands of President-elect Trump's camp to eliminate self-censorship functions on social networking service (SNS) platforms. Brendan Carr and Andrew Ferguson, nominees to lead the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and Federal Trade Commission (FTC) in the second Trump administration, hold the view that SNS platforms deleting certain content deemed harmful restrict freedom of expression.
President-elect Trump and his supporters have also strongly criticized Facebook, operated by Meta, for severe political bias and excessive censorship. In particular, Facebook became a target of their attacks after blocking Trump's account following the January 6, 2021, Capitol riot incited by Trump supporters. At that time, Zuckerberg explained the reason for the block, saying, "Trump's statements are obstructing a peaceful transfer of power and threatening democracy." Facebook only restored Trump's account ahead of the 2024 election.
CEO Zuckerberg appears to be making efforts to improve relations with President-elect Trump ahead of the inauguration of the second Trump administration on the 20th. He visited Trump's Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida shortly after the election and donated $1 million (about 1.4 billion KRW) for this inauguration. Meta recently promoted Joel Kaplan, a Republican close to the Trump administration, to Meta's Global Policy Officer. The video and text posted on Meta's homepage on this day were also posted under Kaplan's name. The day before, Dana White, CEO of the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) and considered a close aide to President-elect Trump, was appointed as a director of Meta.
© The Asia Business Daily(www.asiae.co.kr). All rights reserved.
