What the news community says about Zuck’s plans to bin fact-checking

Mark Zuckerberg’s announcement that Meta will stop working with third-party fact-checking organisations has gone viral in seconds. The move is intended to reverse the company’s content moderation approach that, according to Zuck, has too often resulted in “censorship.”

Sporting a $900,000 watch, the Meta CEO said in the video: "After Trump first got elected in 2016, the legacy media wrote nonstop about how misinformation was a threat to democracy. We tried in good faith to address those concerns without becoming the arbiters of truth," Zuckerberg said. "But the fact-checkers have just been too politically biased and have destroyed more trust than they've created, especially in the US"

Predictably, the socials went ablaze and many experts and insiders spoke out.

And speaking of fact-checking, it was about time someone fact-checks Zuck's claims about fact-checkers being horrible, censorship-hungry beasts. Thank you, Professor Rasmus Kleis Nielsen, former director of the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism.

Far from "censorship", in their 2024 EU DSA Systemic Risk Assessment and Mitigation Report, Meta proudly trumpets their work with independent fact-checkers, writing it "forms the basis to prevent the spread of large scale misinformation and disinformation" https://t.co/lVurGll7Hc

— Rasmus Kleis Nielsen (@rasmus_kleis) January 8, 2025

James Ball, political editor at The New European and former Guardian journalist, pointed out that it is not only about the end of fact-checking but also about the freedom to talk about topics that could harm vulnerable groups.

Among other things, it’s now okay to call lgbt users mentally ill on Facebook and Insta now – worldwide! The new rules explicitly say you can do that!

But because journalists are self-obsessed pretty much everywhere is leading on the fact checking thing. https://t.co/yYfYDmXW1V

— James Ball (@jamesrbuk) January 8, 2025

Fact-checking organisation Full Fact also weighted in.

For Jonathan Heawood, executive editor of the Public Interest News Foundation, Zuck's announcement raised more questions than answers.

Journalist and content creator Sophia Smith Galer questioned why fact-checking is seen as a left-wing concept, when the data shows right-wing voters are more likely to share false or inaccurate information.

@sophiasmithgaler

Regardless of what ‘wing’ you’re on - we all deserve access to high quality information and news. That’s not only on social media platforms - it’s on news outlets, too, making sure our content is accessible. The politicising of tackling disinformation might not be a problem people fighting disinformation started, but it’s one we’ve got to start battling beyond just repeating that what we do is impartial or that we simply deal in facts. Lots of people hear those words, and instantly believe they are disenfranchised. Amplifying inaccurate information isn’t a fact-checker problem - it’s a platform problem. The struggle is persuading lots of people worried about their freedom of speech that that is in fact the case. 
Paper mentioned is called “Differences in misinformation sharing can lead to politically asymmetric sanctions”

♬ original sound - Sophia Smith Galer

Independent press regulator IMPRESS says Meta's decision is a result of ineffective UK and EU legislation.

Splice Media co-founder and CEO Alan Soon says that Meta's decision has now made an "impossible fight" to debunk misinformation even harder by allying with the Trump administration.

And we will just leave this here, courtesy of blogger Jason Kottke.

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