Zuckerberg – who now has a net worth of $213 billion – founded Facebook in 2004.
Meta acquired Instagram for $1 billion in 2012 and went on to launch Threads – an alternative to Elon Musk’s X, formerly Twitter – in 2023.
Now, all three Meta-owned social media sites are set to loosen moderation by scrapping third-party fact-checking in the US.
Inaccurate posts are labeled with wider context and information.
Facebook, Instagram and Threads users in the US will notice the change (Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
The system is being axed in a bid to restore ‘free expression’, Zuckerberg said in a video update.
Instead, Meta is switching to an X-style Community Notes system where users flag content as false or misleading.
Zuckerberg said the decision was about ‘restoring free expression’ on its platforms and ‘reducing mistakes’ it said automated content moderation systems were making, which Meta believed was amounting to censorship in some cases, accusing some fact-checkers of being influenced by their own biases.
Fact-checking practices will remain as usual outside the US.
Full Fact, a fact-checking organization involved in verifying Facebook posts in Europe, called Meta’s decision a ‘backwards step’.
Zuckerberg explained Meta’s moderation changes in a new video (Chris Unger/Zuffa LLC via Getty Images)
Their chief executive Chris Morris said: “We absolutely refute Meta’s charge of bias – we are strictly impartial, fact check claims from all political stripes with equal rigour, and hold those in power to account through our commitment to truth.
“Like Meta, fact checkers are committed to promoting free speech based on good information without resorting to censorship. But locking fact checkers out of the conversation won’t help society to turn the tide on rapidly rising misinformation.”
The community notes system was first introduced on X back in 2021, becoming more widely used after Musk took over the social media giant in 2023.
It allows platform users who have signed up to the program to respond to potentially controversial posts with clarifications and wider context in a break out box.
People can then vote on if they find the annotations helpful.
And Musk – an outspoken advocate for ‘free speech’ – has since responded to Zuckerberg’s moderation changes.
Sharing a screenshot to his X profile of a Free Speech Union article headlined: “Facebook dumps fact-checkers in attempt to ‘restore’ free speech,” Musk simply responded: “This is cool.”
Trump said at a news conference: “Honestly, I think they have come a long way, Meta, Facebook.”
Asked whether Zuckerberg was ‘directly responding’ to threats Trump had made to him in the past, the incoming president responded: “Probably”.
