Facebook and Instagram to replace fact checkers with 'community notes'

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Key Points

Social media giant Meta has announced the end of its US fact-checking program.
The shift comes as Mark Zuckerberg tries to reconcile with Trump ahead of his inauguration.
Meta will also recommend more political content across its platforms.

Social media giant Meta, which owns Instagram and Facebook, has announced the end of its US fact-checking program, saying it will instead implement community notes similar to those on X (formerly Twitter).

“We’re going to get rid of fact-checkers (that) have just been too politically biased and have destroyed more trust than they’ve created, especially in the US,” Meta founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a post.

On X, users are able to add context to potentially misleading posts, and owner Elon Musk has welcomed Zuckerberg’s move to emulate the system.

“This is cool,” Musk posted on his X platform after the announcement.

Meta’s surprise announcement echoes long-standing complaints made by Trump’s Republican Party and Musk about fact-checking, which many conservatives see as censorship.

They argue that fact-checking programs disproportionately target right-wing voices, which has led to proposed laws in states like Florida and Texas to limit content moderation.

A cultural tipping point

The shift comes after efforts by Zuckerberg to reconcile with Trump since his election in November, including donating one million dollars to his inauguration fund.

Trump has been a harsh critic of Meta and Zuckerberg for years, accusing the company of bias against him and threatening to retaliate against the tech billionaire once back in office.

Donald Trump standing in front of two American flags.

Donald Trump has been a harsh critic of Meta and Mark Zuckerberg for years. Source: AAP, AP / Evan Vucci

When Trump was asked if he believed the move was a response to his threats against Zuckerberg, he responded: “Probably, yeah.”

Trump was kicked off Facebook following the January 6 attack on the US Capitol by his supporters in 2021, though the company .

Meta has made moves in recent days that are likely to please Trump’s team, such as appointing former Republican official Joel Kaplan to head up public affairs at the company.

Zuckerberg has also named Ultimate Fighting Championship head Dana White, a close ally of Trump, to the Meta board.

In a statement, Kaplan insisted the company’s approach to content moderation had “gone too far”.

“Too much harmless content gets censored, too many people find themselves wrongly locked up in ‘Facebook jail,’” he said.

Political content to increase

As part of the overhaul, Meta said it would relocate its trust and safety teams from liberal California to more conservative Texas.

“That will help us build trust to do this work in places where there is less concern about the bias of our teams,” Zuckerberg said.

He also said that Meta would “work with President Trump to push back against foreign governments going after American companies to censor more”.

Additionally, Meta announced it would reverse its 2021 policy of reducing political content across its platforms.

Criticism from fact checkers

Angie Drobnic Holan, director of the International Fact-Checking Network, said the decision came after “extreme political pressure”.

She said the move would “hurt social media users who are looking for accurate, reliable information to make decisions about their everyday lives and interactions with friends and family”.