Meta ends fact checks as it prepares for Trump era

Meta will dismantle its extensive fact-checking program, chief executive Mark Zuckerberg said Tuesday, ending a practice that has sought to limit the spread of falsehoods on its platform but has been assailed as censorship in conservative circles.

The company said it would allow its users to write and rate notes that appear next to specific posts, adding context or debunking key claims. In a video accompanying a Meta blog post, Zuckerberg cited errors made by the company’s fact-checking team and alluded to the presidential election victory of Donald Trump, who has often raged against fact-checking as an impediment to free speech.

“We’ve reached a point where it’s just too many mistakes and too much censorship,” Zuckerberg said. “The recent elections also feel like a cultural tipping point towards once again prioritising speech. So we are going to get back to our roots, focus on reducing mistakes, simplifying our policies, and restoring free expression on our platforms.”

Meta founder and chief executive Mark Zuckerberg said 'We’ve reached a point where it’s just too many mistakes and too much censorship.' Photo / Bloomberg via Getty Images

The announcement marks the latest in a flurry of changes at Meta as Zuckerberg repositions the company for a second Trump administration. Last week, the company named Joel Kaplan, a Republican with deep experience in Washington, as its chief global affairs officer, replacing former British politician Nick Clegg. And on Monday, it named Dana White, a Trump ally and president of the Ultimate Fighting Championship, to its board of directors.

In November, Zuckerberg dined with Trump at Mar-a-Lago. Last month, Meta donated $1 million to his inauguration committee as part of its bid to mend relations with the incoming president, whom the company suspended from its platforms in January 2021 before reinstating him in 2023.

Other tech giants have also embraced Trump as the industry seeks to avoid a repeat of his first term, in which the President often clashed with Silicon Valley.

The new community notes system will be phased in over the next several months and honed over the course of 2025, the company said. The plan appears similar to the system introduced by Elon Musk after he bought Twitter in 2021 and changed its named to X. Musk’s reliance on community notes in lieu of fact-checkers has drawn praise as a clever concept but has also been criticised as insufficient to rein in falsehoods and unfounded conspiracy theories on the platform.

“Just like they do on X, Community Notes will require agreement between people with a range of perspectives to help prevent biased ratings,” Kaplan wrote.

The company is also taking related steps to change what it allows on the platform. The company said it would lift restrictions on “some topics that are part of mainstream discourse” and focus its enforcement on illegal or high-severity violations of its policies.