Meta’s fact-checking changes are just what Trump’s FCC head asked for

I have to commend Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his new policy chief Joel Kaplan on their timing. It’s not hugely surprising that, as the pair announced early today, Meta is giving up on professional third-party fact-checking. The operator of Facebook, Instagram, and Threads has been backing off moderation recently, and fact-checking has always been contentious. But it’s probably smart to do it two weeks before President-elect Donald Trump takes office — and nominates a Federal Communications Commission head who’s threatened the company over it.

Trump’s FCC chairman pick (and current FCC commissioner), Brendan Carr, is a self-identified free speech defender with a creative interpretation of the First Amendment. In mid-November, as part of a flurry of lightly menacing missives to various entities, Carr sent a letter to Meta, Apple, Google, and Microsoft attacking the companies’ fact-checking programs.

The letter was primarily focused on NewsGuard, a conservative bête noire that Meta doesn’t actually work with. But it also demanded information about “the use of any media monitor or fact checking service,” and it left no doubt about Carr’s position on them. “You participated in a censorship cartel that included not only technology and social media companies but advertising, marketing, and so-called “fact checking” organizations,” Carr wrote. The incoming Trump administration and Congress, he continued, will take “broad ranging actions ... and those actions can include both a review of your companies’ activities as well as efforts by third-party organizations and groups that have acted to curtail those [speech] rights.”

In case the implications weren’t clear enough, Carr spelled out exactly how his agency could punish them:

Prized liability shield you’ve got there! It’d be a real shame if someone... administered it.

If you’re wondering, “Since when is the FCC in charge of Section 230?” Carr links to a memo from Trump’s first term about a proposal that then-chairman Ajit Pai never got around to passing. It was unclear whether the FCC could do it back then, and that was before the Supreme Court handcuffed regulatory agencies by killing the doctrine of Chevron deference. Even Federalist Society contributors think Carr’s going off the rails here. (In any case, the “in good faith” provision only applies to one currently lesser-used section of Section 230 and it’s unclear why fact-checking services would violate it.) That said, it’s likely he and Trump will try again anyway — and they can still create a lot of headaches for a company that flouts his demands.

If you’re also wondering what the big deal is, this is almost textbook jawboning: a form of soft government censorship that Carr and other Republicans have railed against their political opponents for (allegedly, and according to the Supreme Court, probably not actually) performing. Private companies have the right to moderate — or not moderate — platforms, and they have the right to label — or not label — posts with third-party fact-checks. Government officials shouldn’t threaten to strip legal protections from them for doing it.

On top of all that, this kind of high-profile jawboning undercuts the notion that Meta made a principled decision. It’s entirely possible the company would have discontinued fact-checking anyway; it’s a lightning rod for controversy that social networks are increasingly trying to avoid, and there are pragmatic questions about how well it works. Meta has a long and lofty justification for its move that even complains about government pressure, implicitly under the Biden administration, to take down content in the past. But Carr’s letter makes that complaint look laughable — and it makes Meta look like cowards.

Correction: The new policies were announced today, not yesterday. We regret the error.