Meta announces commitment to free speech: 'Restore free expression'
Constitutional law attorney Jonathan Turley provides analysis of Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg's announcement, where he highlighted a focus on free speech and admitted the Biden administration pressured the company into censorship.
Liberal media commentators grumbled on social media after Meta announced it would be ending its fact-checking program as part of the sweeping changes it was making to "restore free expression" on its social media platforms.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg previewed the changes coming to Facebook, Instagram and other Meta apps in a video message posted Tuesday morning.
"We’re going to get back to our roots and focus on reducing mistakes, simplifying our policies and restoring free expression on our platforms," Zuckerberg said. "More specifically…we’re going to get rid of fact-checkers and replace them with Community Notes similar to X, starting in the U.S."
Zuckerberg admitted the third-party fact-checkers who partnered with Meta after Donald Trump's election in 2016 had proven to be "too politically biased" and had "destroyed more trust than they created."
TRUMP SAYS META HAS ‘COME A LONG WAY’ AFTER ZUCKERBERG ENDS FACT-CHECKING ON PLATFORMS
Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta, arrives to testify before the US Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, "Big Tech and the Online Child Sexual Exploitation Crisis," in Washington, DC, on January 31, 2024.? (ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS/AFP via Getty Images)
Meta executives revealed the company would also be making changes to rules moderating speech on sensitive topics like immigration and gender that were "too restrictive."
While conservatives praised Meta's decision, the news was met with heavy criticism from left-leaning and anti-Trump voices in the media.
"Why doesn't Zuck have any balls. Isn't the point of being a billionaire that you don't have to be a punching bag for tech journalists and aspiring autocrats?" MSNBC analyst and The Bulwark podcast host Tim Miller wrote on X.
CNN chief media analyst Brian Stelter said Meta was "trying to appeal" to the Trump administration with its "MAGA-friendly" changes.
"Mark Zuckerberg’s MAGA makeover will reshape the entire internet," Stelter wrote in a CNN analysis criticizing Meta's move and calling censorship concerns on these platforms, "right-wing" talking points.
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U.S. President-elect Donald Trump greets Elon Musk as he arrives to attend a viewing of the launch of the sixth test flight of the SpaceX Starship rocket on November 19, 2024 in Brownsville, Texas (Brandon Bell/Getty Images)
"Doing away with fact-checkers is incredibly dangerous," journalist and former ESPN host Jemele Hill also wrote.
"Just because you say it, doesn’t make it true. So if I said that Donald Trump was hatched from a rhinoceros and a Martian, created some graphics and headlines and presented as a fact, then that’s cool?" she asked.
"We have seen the enormous impact of misinformation, of disinformation, on our politics. If you’re anti-fact-checking, I have to wonder why. If your idea of free speech is letting lies have the same equity as the truth, then you’ve lost the plot."
"In what looks almost like a hostage video, Zuckerberg bends the knee to Trump entirely — doing away with Facebook fact-checkers and moving the process to Texas under the guise of protecting free expression," progressive media outlet the Tennessee Holler posted.
Journalists who had partnered with Meta over the past eight years for the fact-checking project also slammed Meta's decision to end it.
"If Meta is upset it created a tool to censor, it should look in the mirror," PolitiFact executive director Aaron Sharockman said in a statement posted to X following Zuckerberg’s announcement.
"The decision to remove independent journalists from Facebook’s content moderation program in the United States has nothing to do with free speech or censorship. Mark Zuckerberg’s decision could not be less subtle," he wrote.
CLICK HERE FOR MORE COVERAGE OF MEDIA AND CULTURE
A PolitiFact journalist pushed back on Mark Zuckerberg's claims about fact-checkers becoming too political. (AP Photo/Patrick Sison, File)
He objected to Zuckerberg’s accusation of political bias, stating that Meta’s platforms, not the fact-checkers, were the entities that actually censored posts.
"Let me be clear: the decision to remove or penalize a post or account is made by Meta and Facebook, not fact-checkers. They created the rules," Sharockman said.
"You can see all of our work online at politifact.com," he added. "We don’t use anonymous sources, and we provided a bibliography of sorts to all the information we consulted. When we make an error, there is a process to correct those mistakes. And there’s also a process to make sure Facebook and Meta receive the corrected information."
Meta says it sees a 'real opportunity' to work with the Trump administration on free expression and promoting US business. (Getty Images)
Angie Drobnic Holan, director of the International Fact-Checking Network and former editor-in-chief of Politifact, also criticized Meta's decision.
"The fact-checkers used by Meta follow a Code of Principles requiring nonpartisanship and transparency. It's unfortunate that this decision comes in the wake of extreme political pressure from a new administration and its supporters. Factcheckers have not been biased in their work — that attack line comes from those who feel they should be able to exaggerate and lie without rebuttal or contradiction," she wrote on X.
Fox News' Brooke Singman and Gabriel Hays contributed to this report.
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