End of its fact-checking program, moderation on Facebook and Instagram… what will change for Meta users ?

This Tuesday, January 7, Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta, which includes Facebook, Instagram and Whatsapp, announced that he was ending the fact-checking system that was in effect on the group's social networks. He said he wanted to draw inspiration from the system implemented by Elon Musk on X.

Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, announced that it was ending its fact-checking program in the United States this Tuesday, January 7, a few days before Donald Trump's inauguration, marking a major step backwards in content moderation on social networks, according to specialists.

“We're going to get rid of fact-checkers and replace them with community ratings, similar to X (formerly Twitter), starting in the US,” the company's CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a Facebook post. Meta also wants to move its content moderation teams from California, one of the most progressive US states, to the much more conservative Texas.

A system similar to X, owned by Elon Musk

Instead of using independent organizations to combat misinformation, X owner Elon Musk has implemented user-written notes when They believe that information requires recontextualization. According to Mark Zuckerberg, “fact-checkers have been too politically oriented and have done more to reduce trust than they have improved it, particularly in the United States.”

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Meta's announcement comes as Elon Musk and many Republican lawmakers have for years been accusing fact-checking programs of “censorship” against conservative voices.

Trump believes he “probably” influenced the decision

Meta and Facebook “have made a lot of progress”, Donald Trump responded Tuesday during a press conference at Mar-a-Lago. The president-elect responded “probably” to a reporter who asked him if he thought Mark Zuckerberg made the decision because of threats he had made in the past.

The Republican billionaire was suspended from Facebook after the attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021 for inciting violence. Now their relationship seems more peaceful. Mark Zuckerberg dined with Trump in November at Mar-a-Lago, donated $1 million to the fund that will finance his inauguration on January 20, and named several of the Republican’s supporters to high office.

“That’s cool”, for his part commented Elon Musk on X, publishing at the same time a screenshot of an article titled: “Facebook fires fact-checkers in an attempt to restore free speech”.

For Mark Zuckerberg, the recent elections mark a “cultural turning point that once again prioritizes free speech”. The Californian group plans to review and “simplify” its rules regarding content on its platforms and “abolish a number of limits concerning subjects such as immigration and gender, which are no longer in the dominant discourses”.

France expresses its “vigilance”

But for many observers, this radical change in policy opens the doors to a flood of disinformation and interference in the electoral polls. Clara Chappaz, Minister Delegate for Artificial Intelligence and Digital Affairs, said she had “made sure that this feature would only be deployed in the United States. Trust in my vigilance on the subject.”

“This will harm users who are looking for accurate and reliable information to make decisions on a daily basis,” reacted Angie Holan, the director of the IFCN, the international fact-checking network, which brings together more than 170 organizations worldwide.

“Fact-checking journalism has never censored or removed posts. Fact-checkers add information and context to controversial claims, and debunk hoaxes and conspiracy theories,” she said, “following non-partisan and transparent principles.” For Clara Jimenez Cruz, president of the EFCSN (the European counterpart of the IFCN), Meta's decision “seems more politically motivated than evidence-based.”