Zuckerberg Suspends Facebook’s Third-Party Fact-Checking, Citing Concerns Over Censorship – One America News Network
OAN Staff James Meyers
7:22 AM – Tuesday, January 7, 2025
On Tuesday, Meta announced the discontinuation of its fact-checking program in the U.S., replacing it with a new “Community Notes” system, akin to the one used by Elon Musk’s platform, X.
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This new Community Notes model will empower users across Meta’s platforms—Facebook, Instagram, and Threads—to flag posts that may be misleading and require additional context. This shift minimizes the reliance on independent fact-checking organizations and experts.
“Experts, like everyone else, possess their own biases and viewpoints. This became evident in the selections made about what to fact-check and how… A program intended for informing frequently transformed into a mechanism of censorship,” Meta stated.
Furthermore, Meta expressed that its content management efforts across platforms have grown “to such an extent that we are making too many errors, frustrating our users, and often hindering the free expression we aim to support.”
The Community Notes feature is expected to roll out in the United States over the next few months, as stated by the parent company of Facebook.
Meta’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg pointed to the recent elections as a key factor in the company’s decision, criticizing “governments and legacy media” for urging the company to “censor increasingly.”
“The recent elections represent a cultural turning point that once again emphasizes the importance of free speech,” he noted. “Thus, we will return to our fundamental principles, work on minimizing mistakes, simplifying our policies, and reinstating free expression on our platforms.”
The platform will cease demoting fact-checked content and will implement a label to inform users of additional information linked to the post, moving away from the current practice of utilizing full-screen warnings that require users to click through before accessing the post.
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