Huge trouble stopping fact-checkers, says watchdog Meta

The co-chair of the independent body that reviews content on Facebook and Instagram said she was “very concerned” about how the decision by parent company Meta to ditch fact-checking would affect minority groups.

Helle Thorning-Schmidt, of Meta’s supervisory board, told the BBC that she welcomed some aspects of the change, which will see users decide on the accuracy of posts via X-style “community notes”.

However, speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, she said there were “huge problems” with the announcement, including the potential impact on the LGBTQ+ community and gender and trans rights.

“We see many cases where hate speech can lead to harm in real life, so we will be monitoring this space very carefully,” she added.

In the published video Along with a post on the company’s blog on Tuesday, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said the decision was motivated by a “return to our roots around free speech.”

He said the third-party fact-checking programs currently used by the firm were “too politically biased”, meaning too many users were being “censored”.

The decision raised questions about the survival of the Meta-funding board, which was set up by then global affairs president Sir Nick Clegg. who announced that he was leaving the company less than a week ago.

Ms Thorning-Schmidt, a former Danish prime minister, insisted that changes to fact-checking meant it was needed more than ever.

“That’s why it’s good that we have an oversight board that can discuss this transparently with Meta,” she said.

She welcomed some of Meta’s announcements about moderation, including its aim to find a new way of fact-checking after there were cases of “over-enforcement” where people ended up in “Facebook jail”.

While Metta says the move – which is being introduced in the US for the first time – is about free speech, others believe it is an attempt to get closer to the incoming Trump administration and catch up with the access and influence they enjoy another tech titan, Elon Musk.

Tech journalist and writer Cara Swisher told the BBC it was “the most cynical move” she had seen Mr Zuckerberg make in the “many years” she had been writing about him.

“Facebook is doing whatever is in its best interest,” she said.

“He wants to kiss Donald Trump and catch up with Elon Musk in this act.”

For now campaigners against online hate speech reacted with horror at the changessome free speech advocates welcomed the news.

US free speech group Fire said: “Meta’s announcement shows the marketplace of ideas in action. Its users want a social media platform that doesn’t suppress political content or use top-down fact-checking.

“Hopefully, these changes will lead to less arbitrary moderation decisions and more freedom of speech on the Meta platforms.”

Speaking after the changes were announced, Mr Trump told a news conference that he was impressed by Mr Zuckerberg’s decision and that Meta had “come a long way”.

Asked whether Mr Zuckerberg had “directly responded” to Trump’s threats in the past, the future US president said: “Maybe”.

On Tuesday, Mr. Zuckerberg acknowledged that the change in strategy poses some risk for the company.

“This means we’re going to catch less bad stuff, but we’re also going to reduce the number of innocent people’s posts and accounts that we accidentally delete,” he said in his video message.

X’s move to a more hands-off approach to content moderation has helped a lot quarrel with advertisers.

Jasmine Enberg, an analyst at Insider Intelligence, said this is also a risk for Meta.

“Meta’s sheer size and powerful ad platform somewhat insulates it from the exodus of users and advertisers like X,” she told the BBC.

“But brand safety remains a key factor in determining where advertisers spend their budgets – any major drop in engagement could hurt Meta’s ad business given the intense competition for users and ad dollars.”