Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced Tuesday, he intends to end the company's widely discredited fact-checking system on Facebook, Instagram, and Threads, citing a desire to restore free expression on the platforms. The platforms, he said, will instead adopt the crowdsourced community notes system used by X.
"We’re going to get back to our roots and focus on reducing mistakes, simplifying our policies and restoring free expression on our platforms," Zuckerberg said in a video posted Tuesday morning. "More specifically, we’re going to get rid of fact-checkers and replace them with Community Notes similar to X, starting in the U.S."
Meta will lift restrictions on certain topics, such as immigration and gender, that are considered part of mainstream discourse. The company will also move its content moderation teams from left-wing state of California to Texas, where there is less concern about bias.
This decision comes as Donald Trump is set to take office, and Zuckerberg has expressed his intention to work with the President-elect's administration to push back against governments that are trying to censor American companies. Joel Kaplan, Meta’s new chief global affairs officer and a prominent Republican, will play a key role in this effort.
Trump has been a vocal critic of Big Tech's biased fact-checking and has accused social media platforms of censoring conservative voices, and his administration is expected to work closely with Meta on these issues.
Kaplan, joined Fox News Channel’s "Fox & Friends" Tuesday to discuss the changes.
"This is a great opportunity for us to reset the balance in favor of free expression. As Mark says in that video, what we're doing is we're getting back to our roots and free expression," Kaplan told Fox News.
Meta’s third-party fact-checking program was put in place after the 2016 election and had been used to "manage content" and misinformation on its platforms, largely due to "political pressure," executives said, but admitted the system has "gone too far."
"We went to independent, third-party fact-checkers," Kaplan said. "It has become clear there is too much political bias in what they choose to fact-check because, basically, they get to fact-check whatever they see on the platform."
"Instead of going to some so-called expert, it instead relies on the community and the people on the platform to provide their own commentary to something that they’ve read," Kaplan explained, noting that if a note gets support from "the broadest cross-section of users," that note can be attached to the content for others to see.
"We think that’s a much better approach rather than relying on so-called experts who bring their own biases into the program," he said.
Kaplan also told Fox News that Meta is changing some of its own content moderation rules, especially those that they feel are "too restrictive and not allowing enough discourse around sensitive topics like immigration, trans issues and gender."
"We want to make sure that discourse can happen freely on the platform without fear of censorship," Kaplan said. "We have the power to change the rules and make them more supportive of free expression. And we’re not just changing the rules, we are actually changing how we enforce the rules."
Kaplan said Meta currently uses automated systems, which he said make "too many mistakes" and removes content "that doesn’t even violate our standards." He also said there are certain things Meta will continue to moderate, like posts relating to terrorism, illegal drugs and child sexual exploitation.
But as for the timing of the changes, Kaplan said the company has "a real opportunity now."
"We have a new administration coming in that is far from pressuring companies to censor and [is more] a huge supporter of free expression," Kaplan said, referring to the incoming Trump administration. "It gets us back to the values that Mark founded the company on."
Last year, Zuckerberg sent a letter to the House Judiciary Committee in which he admitted that he felt pressure from the Joe Biden administration, particularly with regard to COVID content, and even items like satire and humor.
"The thing is, as American companies, when other governments around the world that don’t have our tradition or our First Amendment, when they see the United States government pressuring U.S. companies to take down content, it is just open season then for those governments to put more pressure [on their companies]," Kaplan explained. "We do think it is a real opportunity to work with the Trump administration and to work on free expression at home."
Kaplan also said Meta sees "opportunities for partnership" with the Trump administration, not only on issues of free expression but also in "promoting American business and America’s technological edge."
"Those are issues of great importance to Meta and our sector," Kaplan told Fox News. "And we’re excited to work with the Trump administration to advance those goals."
