Fact-checkers face a limbo after Meta's policy shift

CRITICS ARGUE THAT META'S MOVE TO MODERATE CONTENT WITH COMMUNITY NOTES WOULD BE INEFFECTIVE IN INDIA

- Aditi Agrawal [e-mail]

NEW DELHI: Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg's announcement on January 7 about phasing out fact-checkers in favour of crowd-sourced "Community Notes" has left Indian fact-checking organisations uncertain about their future, despite assurances that international partnerships remain unaffected for now.

"These words from Meta mean nothing. They had contracts with American fact-checkers until December 2025 or January 2026 and those are ending in March this year," said one fact-checker, citing statements made at the monthly global International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN) meeting on January 8.

In a video, Zuckerberg said that after Donald Trump's election in 2016, the "legacy media" "constantly" wrote about how "misinformation is a threat to democracy". He claimed Meta, then Facebook, tried to address it "without becoming the arbiters of truth" but fact-checkers "have just been too politically biased and have destroyed more trust than they created". "Getting rid" of fact-checkers would "start with the US", he said.

His claims contradict Meta's own data. The company's third-party fact-checking network page states "we know this program is working and people find value in the warning screens we apply to content after a fact-checking partner has rated it".

While Meta emailed its Indian third-party fact-checking partners on January 7, at the same time as the video was posted, stating there would be "no impact on international third-party fact checking coverage, or those 2025 contracts", fact-checkers remain sceptical given the company can terminate contracts with one month's notice.