In a world where the spreading of easily debunkable misinformation and propaganda has become as commonplace as regular-degular fact-based news reporting, Mark Zuckerberg has decided now is the time for Meta to ditch its independent fact-checkers.
SIGH.
Source: Ezra Acayan / Getty
That’s right, folks, Facebook and Instagram users will, once again, be able to post their proof that the conspiracy is real with the information they yanked from SeeTheConspiracyIsReal.com without those pesky fact-checkers showing up and poking holes in their pseudo-intellectual nonsense in real-time. And because white male conservative-leaning dude-bros hopped up on privilege and persecution complexes are, if nothing else, predictable, Zuckerberg is justifying the move by repeating the MAGA world’s claim that fact-checkers are biased against Republican conservatives, whose right to free speech and protection from censorship is somehow being infringed (by people pointing out that they be lying).
From CNN:
In a number of sweeping changes that will significantly alter the way that posts, videos and other content are moderated online, Meta will adjust its content review policies on Facebook and Instagram, getting rid of fact checkers and replacing them with user-generated “community notes,” similar to Elon Musk’s X, CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced Tuesday.
The changes come just before President-elect Donald Trump is set to take office. Trump and other Republicans have lambasted Zuckerberg and Meta for what they view as censorship of right-wing voices.
“Fact checkers have been too politically biased and have destroyed more trust than they’ve created,” Zuckerberg said in a video announcing the new policy Tuesday. “What started as a movement to be more inclusive has increasingly been used to shut down opinions and shut out people with different ideas, and it’s gone too far.”
Zuckerberg, however, acknowledged a “tradeoff” in the new policy, noting more harmful content will appear on the platform as a result of the content moderation changes.
Meta’s newly appointed Chief of Global Affairs Joel Kaplan told Fox on Tuesday that Meta’s partnerships with third-party fact checkers were “well intentioned at the outset but there’s just been too much political bias in what they choose to fact check and how.”
Conservatives likely understand that in a social media environment that has completely thrown fact-checking to the wayside, they’ll never actually have to prove that the independent fact-checkers Zuckerberg has been using on his platforms since 2016 have been biased against Republicans or conservatives — you know, as opposed to the demonstrable reality that prominent Republicans and conservatives and their followers simply post more outrageous, easily fact-checked, lies than their friends on the other side of the political and ideological aisle. They’ll never have to show their work when they say conservatives are disproportionately or unfairly targeted by these politically racist bringers of truth and fact-based content to offset their perpetually propagandizing idiocracy. (Look, I never said I wasn’t biased).
All they have to do is continue repeating over and over again that the fact-checkers are biased, and that narrative becomes a force in itself, regardless of how little tangible evidence it’s presented with.
Just as Elon Musk did when he acquired Twitter, changed its name, and traded its fact-checkers for “community notes,” Zuckerberg is framing his decision as a battle against censorship, which, of course, makes no sense considering social media users were not being disallowed to post their lies — they just couldn’t post them without other social media users being given more tools to discern and verify correct information.
At the very least, it would be nice if Zuckerberg would admit he’s just following Trump’s and Musk’s marching orders. Trump has spent the last four years and some change spreading the propaganda that the 2020 election had been rigged against him despite dozens of judges across lower courts, appellate courts, and the Supreme Court, the Department of Justice, the former head of election cybersecurity, Trump’s own campaign and attorney general all saying clearly and unmistakably that there was no evidence of a rigged election. He and his stooges also spent his entire last campaign lying about a rise in violent crime in America, a narrative that is not supported by any reputable crime database. On a national-televised presidential debate stage, he promoted lies about pet-eating Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio, despite the fact that Springfield’s police department, city planners, Republican mayor, and the state’s Republican governor had all informed Trump and J.D. Vance that there was no evidence that it was happening. (Then Trump and his MAGA minions got mad that he was fact-checked on that lie.)
These are just a few examples of Trump’s penchant for pathological lying and his followers’ penchant for believing every word without bothering to even do bare-minimum research to see if he’s telling the truth.
But nah — this is clearly the perfect time for Zuckerberg to eliminate fact-checkers on his platforms.
I hate it here.
