Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced significant changes to the company’s content moderation policies, stating that the platform will eliminate fact checkers, reduce censorship, and increase recommendations for political content across Facebook, Instagram, and Threads. In a video message published on Facebook, Zuckerberg emphasised a commitment to free speech.
images courtesy of Meta
Watch the full announcement here
He also revealed Meta’s plans to replace fact checkers with a Community Notes system, similar to the one used by Elon Musk’s X (formerly Twitter), allowing users to provide context and caveats to contentious posts.
Zuckerberg criticised Meta’s current fact checkers as “politically biased,” claiming they have eroded trust rather than fostering it. He also announced plans to relocate the company’s content moderation teams from California to Texas to reduce concerns about bias. Acknowledging the trade-offs, he admitted that the shift would result in Meta “catching less bad stuff.”
With over 3 billion users globally, Meta plans to loosen restrictions on topics such as immigration and gender to align with “mainstream discourse.” Zuckerberg also pledged to collaborate with President Trump to resist global governmental censorship efforts, particularly in Europe and Latin America. He criticised Europe’s restrictive data legislation.
This policy overhaul echoes Zuckerberg’s 2019 speech at Georgetown University, where he championed freedom of expression. He described the upcoming U.S. presidential election as a cultural turning point, reaffirming the need to prioritise speech. This new announcement follows the recent resignation of Nick Clegg, Meta’s outgoing president of global affairs, who is being succeeded by Joel Kaplan.
Why is this important?
Meta’s oversight board has expressed cautious optimism about the changes. In a statement, it emphasised the importance of incorporating external perspectives and applauded Meta’s willingness to revise its approach to fact checking.
Zuckerberg has justified the new changes by stating, “Governments and legacy media have pushed to censor more and more,” while reiterating Meta’s commitment to addressing serious issues like terrorism and child exploitation. He noted that over-reliance on complex moderation systems has led to excessive censorship, inadvertently silencing millions of legitimate posts. Adjustments to content filters will focus on tackling only illegal or high-severity violations, relying on user reports for lower-severity cases.