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Meta (Facebook)’s decision to end third party fact-checking and move to a Twitter (X) style Community Notes model should come as no surprise, says one Australian academic.
Monash University associated professor for news and political communication Emma Briant says Mark Zuckerberg’s role in the Cambridge Analytica scandal revealed his intent.
Meta has agreed to pay Australian Facebook users almost $50m after their data was among those unlawfully used by British data firm Cambridge Analytica worldwide.
“While they may pay lip service to the policy concerns of the moment, tech oligarchs run their companies to maximise profits and minimise costs, not to be society’s protector or mediate a neutral, democratic town hall,” Briant says.
“This applies to all of them, not just (X/Tesla owner) Elon Musk.”
Briant says there are no safeguards against tech oligarchs weaponising their platforms to suit political objectives.
“Fact-checking is only one small part of the solution to the problem of contemporary propaganda,” she says.
“Policymakers often put too much faith in labelling false claims; in so doing, they miss an opportunity to take on the larger problems of a manipulative technology infrastructure hiding behind claims of neutrality and free speech.”
Briant says the presence of at least 13 billionaires in Trump’s new administration is telling a story.
“Trump has sent a powerful message across America’s wealthy right-wing elite – now is your time, not theirs,” she says.
“Clearly Mark Zuckerberg heard him loud and clear. Ordinary citizens should be very concerned.”
KAPLAN’S CLAIMS
Meta’s chief global affairs officer Joel Kaplan says the platform will also allow greater political content on its platforms (Facebook, Instagram, Threads) to focus on high-level illegal violations like terrorism, child abuse, drugs, fraud and scams.
He claimed their efforts to moderate content “had gone too far”.
“Too much harmless content gets censored, too many people find themselves wrongly locked up in ‘Facebook jail’ and we are often too slow to respond when they do,” he said.
Kaplan cited the Community Notes model used by Twitter (X) and says Meta’s Notes will be written and rated by contributing users, he says, and will be developed in the US this year.
“We will get rid of our fact-checking control, stop demoting fact checked content and … we will use a much less obtrusive label indicating that there is additional information for those who want to see it.”
On free speech, Kaplan says they intend to make policy changes to allow greater speech on topics like immigration, gender identity and gender.
They will rely on user reports to act on lesser issues and are moving their trust and safety teams from Democrat-controlled California to Republican-controlled Texas and other states.
