Zuckerberg Announces Major Policy Shift on Posts

Mark Zuckerberg unveiled a major change on Tuesday that puts Facebook and other companies under the Meta umbrella more in sync with the incoming Trump administration. Details:

• Fact-checkers: Meta is scrapping its third-party fact-checking system on posts and will shift to a "Community Notes" format similar to the one used by Elon Musk's X platform, reports TechCrunch. Meaning, the company will rely on users to add notes or corrections to posts.
• Rationale: In a video, Zuckerberg said the fact-checkers have gone overboard and taken down too many posts over the years. "We've reached a point where it's just too many mistakes and too much censorship," Zuckerberg said, per the Washington Post. "The recent elections also feel like a cultural tipping point towards once again prioritizing speech. So we're gonna get back to our roots and focus on reducing mistakes, simplifying our policies, and restoring free expression on our platforms."

• Trade-off: Zuckerberg acknowledged a "trade-off" with the new policy, reports CNN. "It means that we're going to catch less bad stuff, but we'll also reduce the number of innocent people's posts and accounts that we accidentally take down." Meta says it will lift restrictions on topics that are "part of mainstream discourse" and instead focus on "illegal and high-severity" areas such as terrorism and child sexual exploitation.
• A trend: The New York Times story on Meta's move observes that "few big companies have worked as overtly to curry favor with the president-elect." Meta previously donated big money to President-elect Trump's inauguration, elevated conservative Joel Kaplan to a senior policy role, and put Trump ally and Ultimate Fighting Championship chief Dana White on Meta's board. Zuckerberg also dined with Trump at Mar-a-Lago.
• From the right: Conservative critics of Facebook, who've long accused the site of bias, are celebrating the move. "Zuckerberg had to be concerned with what he saw happening to CNN and MSNBC as their ratings and viewership continued to swirl down the toilet, while their tone-deaf on-air 'talent' continued to compare Trump to Adolf Hitler, outright call him a fascist, and compare his followers to Nazis," writes Mike Miller at Red State.

(More Meta stories.)