Meta Platforms Inc. is making major changes to its content moderation policies, eliminating its fact-checking program and bringing more political conversations back to feeds on Facebook and Instagram, as part of a bid by CEO Mark Zuckerberg to “restore free expression” on its platforms.
Zuckerberg unveiled the changes in a video early Tuesday morning.
In the video, Zuckerberg lamented that amid the debates around the harms from online content, “governments and legacy media have pushed to censor more and more.”
“We’ve reached a point where it’s just too many mistakes and too much censorship,” Zuckerberg added. “The recent elections also feel like a cultural tipping point towards, once again, prioritizing speech. So we’re gonna get back to our roots and focus on reducing mistakes, simplifying our policies and restoring free expression on our platforms.”
That will include the elimination of fact-checking programs in a move to a community notes model, similar to what Elon Musk’s X uses. And Meta’s platforms will allow for users to freely discuss topics that previously are subject to restrictions, including discussions around “immigration, gender identity and gender,” with the company writing in a blog post that “it’s not right that things can be said on TV or the floor of Congress, but not on our platforms.”
Zuckerberg says that while the decision to add fact checkers was made with good intentions, it backfired.
“Starting in the U.S. after Trump first got elected in 2016, the legacy media wrote non-stop about how misinformation was a threat to democracy,” Zuckerberg said. “We tried, in good faith, to address those concerns without becoming the arbiters of truth, but the fact checkers have just been too politically biased and have destroyed more trust than they’ve created, especially in the U.S.”
Meta will also move its trust and safety and content moderation teams out of California, with content review to be based in Texas. “As we work to promote free expression, I think 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.
And perhaps most notably, Zuckerberg said that he wants to work directly with President Trump to combat restrictions on social platforms in other countries around the world.
“We’re going to work with President Trump to push back on governments around the world that are going after American companies and pushing to censor more,” Zuckerberg said, noting the restrictions Meta faces, including some outright bans in places like China. “The only way that we can push back on this global trend is with the support of the U.S. government, and that’s why it’s been so difficult over the past four years, when even the U.S. government has pushed for censorship by going after us and other American companies, it has emboldened other governments to go even further, but now we have the opportunity to restore free expression, and I am excited to take it.”
English (US) ·