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Meta Says It Isn't Ending Fact-Checks Outside US 'At This Time' (cointelegraph.com) 153

Posted by BeauHD from the only-in-America dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from CoinTelegraph: Social media platform Meta has confirmed that its fact-checking feature on Facebook, Instagram and Threads will only be removed in the US for now, according to a Jan. 13 letter sent to Brazil's government. "Meta has already clarified that, at this time, it is terminating its independent Fact-Checking Program only in the United States, where we will test and refine the community notes [feature] before expanding to other countries," Meta told Brazil's Attorney General of the Union (AGU) in a Portuguese-translated letter.

Meta's letter followed a 72-hour deadline Brazil's AGU set for Meta to clarify to whom the removal of the third-party fact verification feature would apply. [...] Brazil has expressed dissatisfaction with Meta's removal of its fact check feature, Brazil Attorney-General Jorge Messias said on Jan. 10. "Brazil has rigorous legislation to protect children and adolescents, vulnerable populations, and the business environment, and we will not allow these networks to transform the environment into digital carnage or barbarity." Last Tuesday, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced an end to fact-checking on Facebook and Instagram -- a move he described as an attempt to restore free expression on its platforms. He likened his company's fact-checking process to a George Orwell novel, saying it "something out of 1984" and let to a broad belief that Meta fact-checkers "were too biased."
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Meta Says It Isn't Ending Fact-Checks Outside US 'At This Time' More

Meta Says It Isn't Ending Fact-Checks Outside US 'At This Time'

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  • The red states who thought it was a good idea to ban online porn, forcing people to use VPNs have really not done themselves a favour.

    How long is it until a VPN becomes pretty much mandatory for internet browsing?
    • Did they think people would just go to church instead or something?

    • Re:VPN, not just for porn any more. (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Z80a ( 971949 ) on Wednesday January 15, 2025 @08:07AM (#65090323)

      Dictators will eventually demand to shut down all VPN services, or make you need a special "license" to use one.

      • That level of government interference is going to piss off a lot of employers and WFH employees.

        Dictators might get away with it in third world countries, but I think if they try it here, those dictators will find that they were only able to be dictators with corporate support.

    • How long is it until a VPN becomes pretty much mandatory for internet browsing?

      Thats the point really. Get everyone to be a law breaker then when the government wants to stop someone who is inconvenient they simply charge them with being a criminal and send them to jail or worse.

    • Re: VPN, not just for porn any more. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by PsychoSlashDot ( 207849 ) on Wednesday January 15, 2025 @08:39AM (#65090417)
      It's kind of an amazing admission. It says "facts are facts and accuracy matters... except in the US."

      • Re: VPN, not just for porn any more. (Score:4, Insightful)

        by not flu ( 1169973 ) on Wednesday January 15, 2025 @09:01AM (#65090477)
        No it doesn't, the stated reason for removing US fact checkers is that they're so politically biased and wrong so much of the time that community notes would likely do a better job of actually checking facts. I'm not on facebook or in the US so I can't confirm if this true or not but I don't find it an absolutely incredible claim.

        • So fact checkers in every other country around the world are good honest people and only the American ones are bad at their job? That doesnt seem likely.

          They might be saying this is the reason but stuff like this makes these claims seem awfully suspect. Seems much more likely to me these claims are about kowtowing to the incoming US president while not pissing off the rest of the world.

        • the stated reason for removing US fact checkers is that they're so politically biased and wrong so much of the time that community notes would likely do a better job of actually checking facts. I'm not on facebook or in the US so I can't confirm if this true or not but I don't find it an absolutely incredible claim

          I don't think that's the real reason, but I do think it's true. Facebook moderation is famously shit, why would the fact checking (which is related) be any different?

          I think the real reason is that he doesn't want Faceboot to get sued by Trump in case it does accurate fact checking. Until Section 230 is repealed (count on the Reps to give it the ol' college try at least once in the next 4 years) Facebook isn't liable for community-driven fact checking.

        • There’s a reason Zuckerberg gave a million dollars to Trump’s inauguration.

        • the stated reason for removing US fact checkers is that they're so politically biased and wrong so much of the time that community notes would likely do a better job of actually checking facts.

          Which makes it a good example of the bandwagon fallacy [thoughtco.com].

        • The real reason is because Mark Zuckerberg has finished fellating Donny and is now turning around and presenting his asshole. He's too much of a limp dick to go up against Trump, so he's just gonna take his rape like a man and not out up a fight.

      • Ob. quote from the late Sen. Pat Moynihan: "Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not to their own facts".

        Said quote is apparently no longer pertinent under the Dear Orange Leader..

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by shilly ( 142940 )

          You know he nicked that from CP Scott’s 1921 essay about the Guardian, right? Except Scott said it better: “comment is free, but facts are sacred".

      • Blatant capitulation to the incoming regime. Because they know fact checking the orange shit pile would make said shit pile look bad, and that would mean less $$ for FB.
        • I think this more than anything else. If you look at all the tech companies, they comport. Ironically Brazil, not exactly a huge economic power, 10th I think, is telling Zuck (and also Leon a few months ago) how they will act in Brazil. Unsurprisingly they all bend knee to China's demands and to a lessor extent India, two very large moneymakers. Tech speaks one language, money. Now I will say Leon may go to far with his telling countries like the UK and EU how to vote. Perhaps his successfully buying the US

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Rujiel ( 1632063 )

        The amount of pearl-clutching on here around a fucking fact checking service is unprecedented. You don't even know who or what was doing the "fact-checking", nor do you care.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by dfghjk ( 711126 )

      They think they have, not only have they accomplished a sexual purity law but VPN use can identify who should be put in jail.

      "How long is it until a VPN becomes pretty much mandatory for internet browsing?"

      The question should be how long before VPNs are illegal in red states. You can't oppress when you can't see. Or better yet, require VPNs to be honey pots.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by DarkOx ( 621550 )

      Depends on how cynical you are doesn't it.

      If you actually care about keeping harmful content away from children. Then age-verification laws work and VPN or no VPN who cares.

      Little Johnny age 7 with his iPad isn't going to install a VPN, in fact if the parental controls are enabled, if he even tries and goes to the app store, mom or dad will get an request to approve the app install which they will deny. It is an effective parental control that everyone is able to use without having to have special IT knowl

  • Because they would get kicked out (Score:3, Informative)

    by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Wednesday January 15, 2025 @08:24AM (#65090359)
    Almost instantly. The rest of the world just watched Elon Musk spend 300 million dollars buying an election and he's currently praising German neo-Nazi party. They're already taking steps to kick him out of their election and his entire website with it. If Facebook starts letting the Nazis run rampant on their site then their next.



    Free speech has limits and that limit is when you're obviously lying. False advertising is a crime. Stupid people fall for stupid things and there are lots and lots of stupid people and they don't just hurt themselves

    • Re:Because they would get kicked out (Score:4, Informative)

      by jmccue ( 834797 ) on Wednesday January 15, 2025 @09:05AM (#65090485) Homepage
      In the US just take a peek at Twitter. It took time for the Nazis to run rampant. maybe in a year or 2 the same will occur on Facebook.
    • Another limit is when you criticize people with power to shut you up. Do you really think political incumbents are more interested in the truth than in maintaining their power?
    • Fact check: (1) Mord billionaires supported Harris than Trump, and (2) the only people calling the AfD "Nazi" are its political opponents - many of its positions are left of the US Democrats.

  • This is your daily reminder (Score:3)

    by thegarbz ( 1787294 ) on Wednesday January 15, 2025 @08:25AM (#65090365)

    Corporations don't care about you, me, or anyone else. They care only about appeasing the government of the day. Expect fact checking to return to the USA when the republicans lose the next election.

    • They care only about appeasing the government of the day.

      Only is as much as to maximise their profit potential which is all any real corp actually cares about.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by dfghjk ( 711126 )

      Facebook doesn't do fact checking. This is about the pretense of fact checking, beneficial when Democrats have power, a liability otherwise. It's all a show.

    • Usually. Elon Musk with Twitter is a clear example of a business owner who's going to do what he wants to do even if it drives the business into the ground. So, that's what 'integrity' by a business looks like up close. The My Pillow guy too, I guess. Or on the other side you have Patagonia, which has a decades-long reputation for environment and social responsibility / activism.

      "I could be wrong" but I think Zuckerberg's remarks about 'male energy' in the workplace are a sentiment of how he really fee

  • Hey Zuck... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Pollux ( 102520 ) <speter@tedaEINST ... minus physicist> on Wednesday January 15, 2025 @08:41AM (#65090423) Journal

    Just thought you'd like to know, there's something brown and gooey on your nose there...you might want to clean it off, it reeks of convicted felon.

  • Facts matter ... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Freischutz ( 4776131 ) on Wednesday January 15, 2025 @09:06AM (#65090491)

    Meta Says It Isn't Ending Fact-Checks Outside US 'At This Time'

    Yeah, it didn't take very long after 'The Zuck' announced the end of fact checks on Facebook for EU and S-American national leaders to make it clear there would be consequences if Facebook did this in their corner of the world, reason being that they don't want torrents of non-fact-checked digital sewage pumped into their back yard. The mere fact that this change is limited to the USA which is functionally the same as saying that facts matter everywhere except in the PRC, Hungary, Russia, Middle Eastern dictatorships and now the USA says a lot about the state of American public discourse. This isn't being done to increase free speech it is being done because a certain type of person got butt-hurt over being called out for spreading lies and the consequences that brought with it.

    • It's easier to sell lies when they can't be effectively challenged. They know exactly what they're doing, and it isn't promoting free speech - it's securing a domestic propaganda outlet.

    • Re:Facts matter ... (Score:4, Informative)

      by Njovich ( 553857 ) on Wednesday January 15, 2025 @09:36AM (#65090553)

      reason being that they don't want torrents of non-fact-checked digital sewage pumped into their back yard.

      I'm from the Netherlands, honestly it's a bit of a mixed bag what politicians here think of fact-checkers. Obviously on a day like this you will hear more complaints from the people heavily in favor. However, I think there is pretty broad consensus that fact checking is only good if you can do it objectively, and that's very hard.

      There is a specific EU organization, the East StratCom Task Force, designed specifically to tackle Russian disinformation. It is mostly known as EUvsDisinfo. Russian disinformation is of course a very real problem. After EUvsDisinfo made some mistakes and mistakenly called out some Dutch publications for distributing disinformation, the Dutch parliament (which is hardly a MAGA like group) voted in favor of requesting the EU to abolish this organization. The organization was not abolished in the end but they did have to change their way of working.

      Even with the best intentions it's enormously complicated to get a group of people to accurately fact-check items without letting politics or their personal opinion getting in the way.

      I also think if you look at X and the fact-checking there, it's actually pretty good and pretty balanced. Even when it's flawed, at least it's a fairly transparant process in how it works.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by cob666 ( 656740 )
      This is the truth, and very sad for the US as a whole.
      It's amazing how much of my Facebook feed is just blatantly obvious lies and propaganda. There are apparently still people out there that see a single post online somewhere and just accept it as truth, which is no longer based on any factual evidence.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

        Confirmation bias is a core part of the human brain. There aren't "still people out there." People are all like that, you and I included. You can overcome confirmation bias, but you have to do it intentionally.

  • "Fact-Checking Donald Trump". 'Nuff Said!

  • Freedom of Expression != Blatant Lies (Score:3)

    by cob666 ( 656740 ) on Wednesday January 15, 2025 @09:33AM (#65090551)
    So Facebook / Meta is removing fact checking so their platform promotes 'open and free speech'? What a huge crock of bullshit that is. Private companies are under no, ZERO, obligation to comply with any form of Free Speech and providing fact checking ensures that outright lies and dangerous conspiracy theories are flagged as such. If Suckerberg was really interested in providing a platform that provided an open forum then he should implement policies that remove fact checking ONLY from private groups or pages, any public post SHOULD be fact checked.

    Like Twitter (X), Facebook will quickly (again) turn into another propaganda outlet that spreads misinformation and confusion, which ONLY ends up hurting everyone in the long run.

    • As always, the problem is who you trust to decide what is a "blatant lie". I don't see how a for-profit company can create an organization that is completely free from financial pressure. I don't see how a government can create an organization that is completely free form political pressure.

      Combine that with the problem that many real issues are complicated. For example "did climate change cause the Los Angeles fires?". Well, it very likely changed the probability, but there hasn't been time for a peer

      • As always, the problem is who you trust to decide what is a "blatant lie"

        Ivermectin cures covid. There. A complete and blatant lie. There is no discssion about it. The horse paste does nothing for covid.

        People like you will always default to the bullshit excuse because you want to spread your lies and disinformation. Your statement about no peer reviewed study for climate change and LA wildfires flies in the face of all the studies done which show Ivermection doesn't do shit for covid.

        How

        • Why do you believe that Invermectin is ineffective against COVID? FWIW I agree that it is ineffective, but I have not read that in peer reviewed papers describing studies, have you? I believe it because people whose opinions I trust believe it, and because it fits with my general but totally inexpert medical knowlege. - but I also recognize that that is a very poor way to get to "truth". The people who believe Invermectin works do so because people THEY trust believe it. J

          Here is a paper on invermectin

          • Why do you believe that Invermectin is ineffective against COVID?

            Because it is. Study [factcheck.org] after study [factcheck.org] after study [ox.ac.uk] has shown it no effect, whatsoever, on covid. That's. why. There's your peer reviewed papers. The one you cited has been superceded by more relevant and fact-checked studies which clearly show the opposite, including one mentioned above. But keep making excuses.

            You can stop your bullshitting whenever you want. You've been given the information you claim you want and will, as always, ig

  • The rest of the world needs facts.
    The United States just makes up its own facts.

    'Murica.

  • Meta is waiting for right-wing populists to be propelled into power by self-interested plutocrats on a country-by-country basis before suspending fact checking in each country.

  • Now we can see Facebook for what it is: a cesspool of misinformation and conspiracy theories.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by tizan ( 925212 )

      Indeed the Cambridge Analytics fiasco was not a mistake...but the goal was to goad users of facebook towards some opinion.

      Now its clear they want autocracies and with strong white men controlling everything....Putin Style.

  • The USA under Trump (Score:4, Interesting)

    by NotEmmanuelGoldstein ( 6423622 ) on Wednesday January 15, 2025 @02:15PM (#65091517)

    ... "something out of 1984" ...

    "Two-minute hate" and The Emperor's New Clothes have the same purpose: Proving loyalty to group-think. Trump's constant abuse of bureaucrats is more than a billionaire's rage against rules he can't change (although a judiciary that refuses to punish him makes change unnecessary). It's signalling to his devotees who to hate: The fact that US media refuse to ask about inflation or the wars the US (currently) supports, shows their obedience to government propaganda. (In fairness, that's been happening for 20 years.) Unfortunately, it means there is no-one speaking the truth, anything and nearly everything is 'memory-holed' to ensure no-one remembers the dirty deeds Trump committed, that Trump is never the criminal, that the chosen victim is called a provocateur.

    Trump frequently labels somebody as a "traitor" and uses the word because refusing servitude to him is the greatest crime, it is abandoning everything that belongs to the country, and believing his own propaganda, abandoning all the good he created. It's why devotees spew bile and misinformation at any dissent: It is encouraged via "two-minute hate" and because propaganda is the truth (hence the Ministry of Truth). Their servitude is compartmentalized into agreeing with the propaganda (The Emperor's New Clothes) and a physical reality that must never be discussed. Orwell had a word for this worship of propaganda: Double-think. His example was science. Double-think speaks religious dogma while using the tools of science. In a cult of misinformation, science is the enemy because science doesn't change (although our comprehension and interpretation, does). It's why every cult attempts to control science and the facts it contains.

    The novel "1984" didn't mention the third element to this, information overload. While there's a definite purpose to Trump planning against Panama, Greenland, and Canada, what he finally does will depend on reality. But realizing his plan, or any plan, is not the point. It is to distract the people, it is to normalize his contempt for truth, for rules and for his own devotees, it is to keep the devotees proving their loyalty (The Emperor's New Clothes).

    Musk and Bezos use their control of media to ally themselves with government talking-points and the result is more than the foundations of fascism. It is creating the "memory hole" that Trump needs, and Musk controlling the talking-points inside government makes him the boss of the Ministry of Truth. The consequence will be worse than billionaires stealing an entire country. Other countries are correct to assume the USA is creating Orwell's dystopia.

  • Facebook and Instagram are now *officially* a fact-free zone?

    This means he no longer needs to run his own social media platform just to spread lies. Finally, Facebook will have user growth again!

  • ... let bullshit ring!

  • I see lots of FB posts saying that the world is flat, that there was an Ancient Tartarian empire, that [celebrity] is building a hypersonic plane, that NASA has a warp drive, and endless other things that are nowhere close to truth. Is turning off fact checking actually going to change anything?

  • Perfect opportunity for sheeple to ditch being Meta's product and stop using it.

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