Dismay as factchecking ditched on Facebook in 'free speech' drive

Zuckerberg describes Trump re-election as 'cultural tipping point'

- Robert Booth

Mark Zuckerberg's decision to ditch factcheckers on Facebook and "prioritise free speech" weeks before Donald Trump returns to power was condemned as a "major step back" for public discourse yesterday.

The Meta founder announced multiple changes to his platforms, including Facebook and Instagram, in an attempt to "dramatically reduce the amount of censorship".

In a statement yesterday he said that, starting in the US, independent factcheckers will be replaced by a system of "community notes" similar to that used on X, Elon Musk's social media platform, which relies on users to add caveats and context to contentious posts.

Content moderation teams will also be moved from California to Texas, "where there is less concern about the bias of our teams", said Zuckerberg in a five-minute video statement that Nina Jankowicz, a former US government official tasked with fighting disinformation, described as "a full bending of the knee to Trump".

Changes to the way Meta filters content will also mean "we're going to catch less bad stuff" while still taking seriously "a lot of legitimately bad stuff out there, drugs, terrorism, child exploitation", Zuckerberg said.

He said factcheckers were "too politically biased" - an allegation strongly denied by factchecking organisations - and said Meta would "get rid of a bunch of restrictions on topics like immigration and gender that are just out of touch with mainstream discourse".

The 40-year-old billionaire said the shift was in response to the US presidential elections, which he labelled "a cultural tipping point towards, once again, prioritising speech".

Trump and Zuckerberg have had a rollercoaster relationship. Trump threatened to jail the tech boss if he interfered in the election before a November rapprochement involving dinner at Mar-a-Lago, the incoming president's Florida resort, and Zuckerberg donating $1m to his inauguration fund.