Facebook and Instagram phasing out mistake-prone fact-checking with X-style community notes

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Cancel culture and censorship will no longer be tolerated on Facebook and Instagram.

On Tuesday, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced he is prioritizing free speech on the company’s social media sites after the approach to managing content across its platforms became increasingly complex and mistake-prone.

“We’re going to get back to our roots and focus on reducing mistakes, simplifying our policies and restoring free expression on our platforms,” Zuckerberg said in a video statement.

The changes include phasing out content moderation on the company’s social media platforms, doing away with fact-checking teams and moving in the coming months to a community notes format similar to what is used by Elon Musk’s X site.

“Instead of going to some so-called expert, it instead relies on the community and the people on the platform to provide their own commentary to something that they’ve read,” Meta’s chief global affairs officer Joel Kaplan told Fox News.

“We think that’s a much better approach rather than relying on so-called experts who bring their own biases into the program.”

Following the 2016 U.S. presidential election, Meta hired a third party to begin reviewing content shared to sites following criticisms that misinformation and disinformation had gone unchecked.

But the company said the increasingly complex systems to manage content across it platforms had expanded to the point where too many mistakes were made censoring content and free speech.

Meta, which also owns Threads, said it will also uproot its trust and safety teams from California and move them to Texas and other U.S. locations.

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Zuckerberg said free speech has been the driving force of American society and around the world, and inhibiting it allows present-day institutions and power structures to control the narratives.

“Some people believe giving more people a voice is driving division rather than bringing us together,” Zuckerberg said. “More people across the spectrum believe that achieving the political outcomes they think matter is more important than every person having a voice. I think that’s dangerous.”

That means political news, which was not prioritized in recent years, is returning in people’s social feeds.

And that also includes discussions on immigration, transgender issues and gender identity.

“We want to make sure that discourse can happen freely on the platform without fear of censorship,” Kaplan said. “We have the power to change the rules and make them more supportive of free expression. And we’re not just changing the rules, we are actually changing how we enforce the rules.”

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The timing for the changes comes as President-elect Donald Trump is set to return to the White House in less than two weeks.

“We have a new administration coming in that is far from pressuring companies to censor and [is more] a huge supporter of free expression,” Kaplan said. “It gets us back to the values that Mark founded the company on.”

Kaplan also sees partnership opportunities with the Trump administration that can help promote American businesses and technology.

“Those are issues of great importance to Meta and our sector,” Kaplan said. “And we’re excited to work with the Trump administration to advance those goals.”