Summarised by Centrist
Meta’s Chief Global Affairs Officer Joel Kaplan announced the end of the company’s third-party fact-checking program in the US, embracing a “Community Notes” system akin to Elon Musk’s X platform.
Kaplan framed the move as a “return to that fundamental commitment to free expression” and a response to overreach in content moderation.
Kaplan acknowledged that Meta’s fact-checking efforts, launched in 2016, often went beyond their intended purpose of adding context to viral hoaxes. “Too much harmless content gets censored,” he said, with automated systems mistakenly penalising users for legitimate political debate. The new Community Notes approach will rely on user-generated annotations, aiming for transparency and input from diverse perspectives.
Meta is also lifting restrictions on topics like immigration and gender identity to align with public discourse norms, as Kaplan noted: “It’s not right that things can be said on TV or the floor of Congress, but not on our platforms.” The company plans to focus enforcement efforts on illegal and high-severity violations while reducing automated demotions of borderline content.
To address concerns about bias, Kaplan admitted that the fact-checking program had been prone to “mission creep” and reflected the biases of its third-party partners.
