Meta’s decision weakens the battle against misinformation

Meta has announced it will abandon its fact-checking programme, starting in the United States. It was aimed at preventing the spread of online lies among more than 3 billion people who use Meta’s social media platforms, including Facebook, Instagram and Threads.

In a video, the company’s chief, Mark Zuckerberg, said fact checking had led to “too much censorship”.

He added it was time for Meta “to get back to our roots around free expression”, especially following the recent presidential election in the US. Zuckerberg characterised it as a “cultural tipping point, towards once again prioritising speech”.

Instead of relying on professional fact checkers to moderate content, the tech giant will now adopt a “community notes” model, similar to the one used by X.

This model relies on other social media users to add context or caveats to a post. It is currently under investigation by the European Union for its effectiveness.

This dramatic shift by Meta does not bode well for the fight against the spread of misinformation and disinformation online.

Independent assessment

Meta launched its independent, third-party, fact-checking programme in 2016.

It did so during a period of heightened concern about information integrity coinciding with the election of Donald Trump as US president and furore about the role of social media platforms in spreading misinformation and disinformation.

As part of the programme, Meta...

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