Meta ends fact-checking for Facebook, Instagram, and Threads, & shifts to community notes
Meta has officially ended its fact-checking program for Facebook, Instagram, and Threads, as announced by Joel Kaplan, Meta's chief global affairs officer, on X. The decision, effective by yesterday afternoon, halts new fact checks and eliminates the role of fact-checkers. Instead, Meta will implement community notes, allowing users to generate notes without penalties, similar to the system used on X.
This move aligns with Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg's earlier statement in January about phasing out the decade-long program that relied on third-party fact-checkers from the International Fact-Checking Network. The shift reflects a broader trend among tech giants such as Apple, Amazon, and Google to align more closely with the new US administration's agenda. Elon Musk responded to Kaplan's announcement on X with a simple “Cool”, indicating his approval of the change.
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External links
- By Monday afternoon, our fact-checking program in the US will be officially over.X • Official source
- Facebook, Instagram Fact-Checking Has Ended: What That Means for YouCNET
- Meta officially says goodbye to its US fact-checkers on MondayTechCrunch
- Meta’s fact-checking program in the US officially ends soonThe Verge
- Meta's fact-checking program officially ends on MondayMashable
- Meta ends its fact-checking program, replacing it with Community NotesTechSpot
Comments
I've to admit that I approve Zuck on this one. Since the inception of Facebook 20 years ago, he didn't innovated much. After trying virtual currencies, video games, virtual reality, metaverse, metaverse with legs, smart-glasses-whatever, he has only succeed at buying a bunch of other social networks, getting some mildly taste of fediverse, creating some AI stuff and trying new swag gold chains. So if our great Zuck want to become the genius it seems he once used to be, and no more the kid that had once been very lucky with it's MySpace clone, he needs to get as much favor as it could get. And since this $25M paycheck to the US Emperor (for a lawsuit that Meta had no way to loose) is not enough to magically fix this brittle but still assaulted US economy, he needs to blend further and learn to smile. Come on Zuckyboy, you can do it!
They just did this because they don't have to pay anyone to do it. I don't exactly dislike this move though.
Welcome to the world of Russia's and China's truth being the dominant truth in the world (as they have hundreds of thousands of bots in every social network to push any agenda). Cool.
You're kidding yourself if you think the US doesn't also use bots with it's massive "defense" budget and it's servers running in underground bunkers. It isn't just governments either. I understand your point how it can be exploited but you assume too much who or who does not have the most influence and over assuming how many bots there really are. Personally I would rather Facebook just go back to it's roots as a way to connect to old friends rather than awful algorithm driven communities.
I'm from Eastern Europe, pal. I know for a fact how powerful Russian bots are. I've watched them win any comment section under any video/post they came to since 2017. Soon you'll notice that most people in the comments "support" what's beneficial to Russia: euroskepticism, abandoning Ukraine, smearing everyone who opposes Russia - "divide and conquer" in all its manifestations. And you'll never know what percentage of these comments is real. And this fact alone will increase the real support of such opinions - because people believe that "this opinion is supported by everyone - it must be true". If you haven't lived in Russia or its neighbor countries, you know nothing about the power of their propaganda. They have won. Your resistance is irrelevant at this point. They even own the US now - outstanding achievement :)
Yet historically, the "divide and conquer" tactic is most closely associated with the British. How about we recognize liars and propagandists as the cancer, no matter which regime they endorse.
Chances are any bots Russia uses are just pretty standard just for cost reasons not even very custom LLM models so if that were case they can be detected even through just an automated process.
I think it's better overall even though I am not totally convinced that it's our best option yet. We will see how it performs and how they are made. I won't... as I don't use Meta products...