Meta’s decision to axe fact-checking system, adopt Musk-like policy is a big ‘win’ for free speech: Experts
Meta's decision to lift content restrictions and replace its fact-checking program with a system like X's Community Notes is being heralded as a massive "win" for free speech by experts.
While some critics remain skeptical that the reforms at Meta will lead to substantial change, MRC Free Speech America vice president Dan Schneider told Fox News Digital that First Amendment advocates should take the news as a victory.
"The changes [Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg] has implemented are systemic, long-lasting, including replacing some of the most radical people in Silicon Valley with people like Joel Kaplan and Kevin Martin at the number two and number three spots in the corporation," Schneider said. "Changing the algorithms. These are huge victories."
UCLA Chief Data & Artificial Intelligence (AI) Officer Chris Mattmann, in a conversation with Fox News Digital, said Zuckerberg should be "applauded" and predicted it would lead to a greater sense of free expression on Meta platforms, which include Facebook, Instagram and Threads.
"Without Elon [Musk] buying Twitter, renaming it to X and immediately firing all the Trust & Safety people and all those that were doing this sort of 'independent fact-checking,' –without that and also probably with [Donald] Trump's election [this may not have happened]," he said.
But not everyone was thrilled by the news. Fact-checking organizations, liberal media pundits and other critics have scoffed at claims of political bias and suggested Meta had abandoned its content moderation responsibilities. The New York Times even highlighted fact-checkers who balked at Meta's assertion.
"Trust Signals: Brand Building in a Post-Truth World," author Scott Baradell equated Meta's decision to a referee being pulled off the field and hoping the players would still play fair. He told Fox News Digital that it "raises serious questions about whether Big Tech is retreating from its responsibility to balance free speech with the need for public trust in the digital age."
"Mark Zuckerberg's words are high-minded—and he's certainly right that there have been issues with bias in third-party fact-checking— but let's be honest: he's taking the path of least resistance in the wake of a Trump victory," he continued.
Meta's third-party fact-checking program was put in place after the 2016 election and had been used to "manage content" and misinformation on its platforms, largely due to "political pressure," executives said, but admitted the system has "gone too far."
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Since then, the process has drawn the ire of conservatives who have accused the platform of politically driven censoring while pointing to several examples of content being silenced. It includes the bombshell New York Post reporting on Hunter Biden's laptop, as well as certain content about COVID-19, the latter of which Zuckerberg admitted the Biden White House pressured him to do and was a mistake.
"We went to independent, third-party fact-checkers," Meta's chief global affairs officer, Joel Kaplan, told Fox News Digital in an interview Tuesday morning. "It has become clear there is too much political bias in what they choose to fact-check because, basically, they get to fact-check whatever they see on the platform."
Mattmann, who previously served as the CTO of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), said that while there is some credence to accusations of left-wing bias and inaccuracies among Meta fact-checkers, his other takeaway was Zuckerberg's decision to no longer downrank certain content that has been flagged or rated.
Kaplan told Fox News Digital that Meta would change some of its own content moderation rules, especially those that they feel are "too restrictive and not allowing enough discourse around sensitive topics like immigration, trans issues and gender."
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Kaplan also revealed that Meta currently uses automated systems, which he said make "too many mistakes" and removes content "that doesn't even violate our standards."
HeraldPR CEO and President Juda S. Engelmayer told Fox News Digital that the problem with Meta and other major tech platforms, whether ongoing or resolved, was fact-checkers' coordination with platforms to engage in censorship, sometimes based on personal opinions and ideological agenda.
"For example, the debate over whether the coronavirus originated from a lab in China should never have been censored simply because some considered it offensive or politically sensitive," she said.
"Determining whether the virus was deadly, or whether vaccines and masks were necessary, involves scientific debate and evolving data. Silencing opposing or supportive viewpoints based on a fact-checker's perception of what is best for the public undermines free discourse," Engelmayer continued.
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Mattmann said that as companies like Meta move to a more "open-system mentality" and "shine a light" on their internal processes, the platforms will become better. Previously, Meta would suppress the reach of content rated poorly by fact-checkers or those that included specific keywords.
By moving towards an approach similar to Community Notes, Mattmann suggested that platform users will see more content, regardless of the "context" offered by fact-checkers, and have a greater sense of why review decisions were made.
The key contrast, Mattmann stressed, is that Community Notes is a "globally reviewable, transparent" approach, wherein readers can see some of the discussion around why a piece was flagged and who flagged it.
"The difference between [independent fact-checking organizations] and Community Notes is you can review their profile. The people who have the Community Notes, like you can look at the provenance and say, OK, this was edited by these people and you can go look at them on X, you know and look that up. So, it's really the open-source mentality kind of around it. And that, I think, actually, in the end, wins the day," he said.
Still, Mattmann said Meta can improve X's approach by bringing even further transparency to users.