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Meta Ends Fact-Checking on Facebook, Instagram in Free-Speech Pitch (msn.com) 204

An anonymous reader shares a report: Mark Zuckerberg built up Facebook's content-policing efforts in the wake of Donald Trump's first presidential election. Now the Meta Platforms CEO is reversing course as he embraces a second Trump presidency. Meta is ending fact-checking and removing restrictions on speech across Facebook and Instagram, Zuckerberg said in a video Tuesday, a move he described as an attempt to restore free expression on its platforms.

"We're going to get back to our roots and focus on reducing mistakes, simplifying our policies and restoring free expression on our platforms," Zuckerberg said in the video. He said Meta is getting rid of fact-checkers and, starting in the U.S., replacing them with a so-called Community Notes system similar to that on Elon Musk's X platform in which users flag posts they think need more context.

While Meta will continue to target illegal behavior, Zuckerberg wrote in a separate post on Threads, it will stop enforcing content rules about immigration and gender that are "out of touch with mainstream discourse." Zuckerberg's plan is likely to reshape the experience of billions of people who use Meta's platforms. It steers sharply away from efforts started years ago in response to complaints from users, advertisers and politicians that abusive and deceptive content had run amok on Meta's suite of apps. The effort to rein in such speech sparked its own backlash from people -- especially on the political right -- who said it often strayed into censorship.

Meta Ends Fact-Checking on Facebook, Instagram in Free-Speech Pitch

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  • by spacepimp ( 664856 ) on Tuesday January 07, 2025 @01:23PM (#65070439)

    Third party companies can be corrupted rather easily. Mark stated that the results were too biased. If this results in more honest/accurate results that is a good thing. To me it doesn't matter much as I deleted my account years ago.

    • by CityZen ( 464761 )

      Truth will always be biased against liars, and that is not a problem that needs to be fixed.

  • Since when did FB start fact checking, based on the garbage I get they never had. Based on the reports I have submitted for post they show how to stick shorted metal prongs into an outlet and then FB telling me it doesn't violate their terms. They dont care about anything but sponsor dollars.
    • Since when did FB start fact checking

      They blocked lots of content based on supposed fact-checking that eventually ended up just being partisan shilling. Such as the Hunter Biden laptop story that was buried (https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-62688532), plus a great deal of content during the COVID era (some of that actually came from pressure from the govt itself: https://www.cnn.com/2024/08/27... [cnn.com])

  • It really seems to be a policy to use people to fact check Meta AI's posts. Meta doesn't have the infinite pool of cheap labor that China has, so it's going to subjugate its user pool to train its AI. As brilliant as it is sick. https://gizmodo.com/metas-ai-p... [gizmodo.com]
  • No longer needed (Score:4, Interesting)

    by sentiblue ( 3535839 ) on Tuesday January 07, 2025 @02:00PM (#65070583)
    The whole censorship program was to block people from talking shit about one side and allowing the same against the other. Now that the other side wins the election and there's no chance he can run again, censorship is no longer relevant. Of course they gonna abandon it to save salary costs.
  • It will make much easier right-wing trolls sponsored by Musk and his bros to spread lies and propaganda...

    probably manipulating elections in the directions they want...

  • The problem is not that people, on a regular basis, don't know facts from a hole in the ground. There are facts, and there are grey areas... it's unreasonable to expect we all agree on things, even the self evident.

    The problem is that when I post a picture of Kim K's Big Fat Titties on the internet, they get passed around like a teddy bear, until there are copy cat websites, AI generated advertisements for them, and 1 BILLION other people see them. Who doesn't love big fat titties? If you watch Netflix and
  • "The windmills are driving the whales crazy. Obviously."

    Fact check please in aisle one!

  • With the bots they've been playing with this'll be Dead Internet Theory:For Real and they'll drown out whatever actual content still gets posted with whatever they feel like boosting. No need to censor out any political viewpoints, just dilute them.
  • Don't complain righties when we post tons of videos showing how uneducated and gullible MAGA hillbillies are.

    • Cannot threaten what has been happening since the tea party days. We really don't care what messages are out, we want to see them compeate on a level playing field amplification wise. If one wants a network of 1000 radio stations, enterian people 15 hours a week and have a few advertisers buy in, it is not like a FM radio station is more expensive than the FCC fee, the tower and transmitter. Not buried by the state or the whatever industrial complex because of some fair and balanced pipe dream.
  • FB fact-checking (Score:4, Interesting)

    by thephydes ( 727739 ) on Wednesday January 08, 2025 @12:19AM (#65071833)
    I was "fact-checked" by FB a couple of months ago when I posted on an amateur astrophotography group an article about the Bortle light pollution scale. For those not sure what this is , it's a 1-10 scale where 1 is no light pollution at all (mostly this means high altitude or very remote sites), and 10 is inner city sky - ie virtually no astronomical sights/sites can be seen. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] My post was too much for the "fact-checker" and I was prevented from posting anything to any page - even those I am an admin of - for a week. Heaven help us if the new process is "better"
  • by It's the tripnaut! ( 687402 ) on Wednesday January 08, 2025 @02:54AM (#65071943) Homepage
    I come from a country where the citizens are almost always looking at Facebook as their main source of information. When an under-educated populace cannot tell the difference between fact and fake news, the results can be disastrous. In 2016, Rodrigo Duterte won the presidency on account of a divisive Facebook propaganda campaign built on fake news [bbc.com] run by people trained in Russia by Putin's propaganda machine.

    The result: a culture of violence and impunity [rappler.com] which caused the deaths of tens of thousands [economist.com].

    Facebook (now Meta) has direct and indirect culpability in all of this as it had ignored widespread reports of misinformation and allowed the proliferation of fake news to a population of over 110 million. Facebook still enjoys enormous reach in the Philippines today, so much so that Meta funded subsea cable investments for the country, with subsidized access to Facebook available for any smartphone owner.

    The Philippines is a model and a cautionary tale of how many parts of the world shifted dramatically to the right in the 2010's, no thanks to unimpeded fake news on social media.

"Why can't we ever attempt to solve a problem in this country without having a 'War' on it?" -- Rich Thomson, talk.politics.misc

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