Like Musk’s Platform X
Facebook and Instagram end fact checks
Updated on January 7, 2025 – 6:28 p.mReading time: 2 min.
In the future, US users will be asked to report questionable content on Facebook and Instagram themselves. The model is Elon Musk’s X short message service.
The Internet group Meta no longer wants to have the truthfulness of content on its platforms in the USA checked by third parties in the future. Instead, users were given the opportunity to mark false or misleading statements as such and provide additional information, the operator of Facebook and Instagram said in a blog post.
The “Community Notes” system is based on billionaire Elon Musk’s short message service X, said Meta boss Mark Zuckerberg. After the USA, other countries will follow in which content moderation will be abolished, it is said.
The group justified its decision with the unsatisfactory results of the content moderation introduced in 2016. “We make too many mistakes, frustrate our users and too often stand in the way of the free expression we want to enable.”
Meta also announced that references to additional information in verified content will be more reserved. Previously, users had to click through screen-sized warnings before they could even see the post in question.
The announced changes come against the background of an ideological realignment within the group’s management team. In keeping with the impending change of power in Washington, the company has appointed Joel Kaplan – a former employee of Republican ex-President George W. Bush – as its new political boss.
Observers see these measures as a reaction to years of Republican criticism of the moderation policy and an attempt to improve the strained relationship with Trump. During the election campaign, he described Facebook as an “enemy of the people” and sharply attacked Zuckerberg.