What are the Facebook and Instagram changes Mark Zuckerberg just announced?
Meta is to scrap independent fact-checking in favour of a system similar to that on Elon Musk’s social media platform X.
Mark Zuckerberg announced on Tuesday that Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, will get rid of fact-checking, end restrictions on discussions around immigration and gender, and allow more political posts in a series of sweeping changes.
Instead of paying organisations to fact-check posts, the social media giant will start to use a “community notes” system similar to that on Elon Musk-owned X.
In an Instagram video, the tech CEO claimed the changes would boost “free speech”, adding it would “make sure that people can share their beliefs and experiences on our platforms”.
Critics have described the move as a potential disaster, with one expert telling Yahoo News it will "likely lead to a massive surge in hateful, extremist, polarising disinformation ".
What does this mean?
The move signals a shift away from Meta using independent fact-checking organisations and towards giving users the power to flag posts that are potentially misleading, as seen on Musk’s X platform.
In his reel, Zuckerberg said: “After Trump first got elected in 2016, the legacy media wrote non-stop about how misinformation was a threat to democracy.
“We tried in good faith to address those concerns without becoming the arbiters of truth, but the fact checkers have just been too politically biased and have destroyed more trust than they've created, especially in the US.”
Zuckerberg said that Meta would take four steps to change the way it polices misinformation.
Firstly, in the next “couple of months” fact-checkers will be phased out in favour of a “community notes” system, where users can add context to posts they feel are misleading.
Secondly, the organisation is going to get rid of restrictions on topics such as immigration and gender.
Zuckerberg said of this change: “What started as a movement to be more inclusive has increasingly been used to shut down opinions and shut out people with different ideas, and it's gone too far. So I want to make sure that people can share their beliefs and experiences on our platforms."
Thirdly, the company is changing how it enforces its policies so as not to penalise people for making mistakes.
Finally, the company aims to bring back “civic and political content”, something that was withdrawn in 2021 amid misinformation fears.
Zuckerberg said that content around civic and political groups was something that users had given feedback on wanting to see again: “We'll phase it back into Facebook, Instagram and Threads while working to keep the communities friendly and positive."
The new policies, announced days before president-elect Trump’s inauguration, will initially roll out in the US where, historically, Meta tends to push large changes to its platforms before rolling out to other territories.
What does this mean for my Facebook and Instagram feed?
It’s difficult to say, but it seems likely that you will soon see more Facebook and Instagram posts on topics and issues that may be divisive.
Zuckerberg said that Meta products now have "too much censorship" and that he wanted to rebalance "freedom of expression" - this would likely include the freedom to offend others on the platform.
Zuckerberg indicated the company would continue to crack down on issues around "drugs, terrorism and child exploitation". However, he said that Meta's filters had been incorrectly taking down content for less serious violations.
In practice, that probably means more politically controversial statements around issues - as flagged by Zuckerberg - such as immigration and transgender popping up on your feed.
What happens if these posts cross the line? It seems likely that your feed will contain a community note that will become visible as a 'correction' on a post once it has been approved by other users.
Citing how X approaches this issue, Zuckerberg said it results in users feeling "empowered" to decide when posts are potentially misleading and need more context.
Will you still be able to complain about a post?
At present, Meta’s fact-checking program relies on a mix of users reporting posts and Meta identifying posts that may contain misinformation.
The community notes program is likely (if it keeps the same model as X) to rely on volunteer contributors to identify and attach notes to offending posts.
Facebook currently allow users to report posts that breach the service’s terms of service around issues such as hate speech.
Meta’s rules currently state: “We take things down from Facebook if they go against our Community Standards. If we don't take down something that you reported, you can still use your settings and preferences tools to control your experience on Facebook. These tools will help you to see less content like this in the future.”
The changes have been criticised in some quarters, however.
Professor Sander Van Linden, a Cambridge University expert in conspiracy theories and disinformation, and author of "Foolproof: Why We Fall for Misinformation & How to Build Immunity”, said that Zuckerberg "massively conflates fact-checking with 'censorship'", adding that it "seems Meta will soon become the same cesspool of hate and misinformation as X."
"Furthermore, Mark’s claim about the political bias of fact-checkers is not consistent with the scientific literature," he said. "Research shows community notes as implemented by Musk has not been effective in reducing engagement with misinformation in the US because it’s too slow, doesn’t have enough capacity, and doesn’t sufficiently break virality.
"Replacing fact-checking with a community-note style program will be a disaster. It will likely lead to a massive surge in hateful, extremist, polarizing disinformation, which Zuckerberg seems to welcome under the banner of “free speech”.
Why is Mark Zuckerberg doing this?
Meta’s move comes alongside a series of references from Zuckerberg to the incoming Trump administration.
Bemoaning censorship in China and Europe, Zuckerberg described the recent election of Donald Trump as a “tipping point”.
Zuckerberg is also known to have dined with Trump at Mar-a-Lago in December, and donated $1 million to his inauguration committee last month.
In addition, Zuckerberg recently appointed Republican former White House Deputy Chief of Staff Joel Kaplan as vice president of global affairs at Facebook (replacing the left-leaning Nick Clegg) and Trump ally Dana White to the board of directors.
Such behaviour is in stark contrast to when Zuckerberg banned Trump from Instagram and Facebook in 2021 following the Capitol riots. At the time, Zuckerberg said that "the risks of allowing the President to continue to use our service... are just too great".
In his video on Tuesday, he said: "We're going to dramatically reduce the amount of censorship on our platforms. Finally, we're gonna work with President Trump to push back on governments around the world.
"They're going after American companies and pushing to censor more. The US has the strongest constitutional protections for free expression in the world.”
Professor Van Linden added: "Mark is purposefully conflating fact-checking with censorship for the purpose of gaining political currency with the new administration."
Van Linden said that ordinary users tend to trust community notes more than expert notes, but that the ideal situation would have been to use both.
