Meta Shifts Focus to Free Speech with New Community Notes System

[Social Media]

 

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced a significant overhaul of the company’s content moderation strategy, signaling a departure from its long-standing fact-checking program. The initiative, which relied on partnerships with trusted organizations, will be replaced by a community-driven system similar to X’s Community Notes. The changes will affect Meta’s primary platforms—Facebook, Instagram, and Threads—and are intended to align with what Zuckerberg described as a cultural shift toward prioritizing free expression.  

The recent elections feel like a cultural tipping point towards once again prioritising freedom of expression”

says Mark Zuckerberg as he announces plans to implement a “Community Notes” like system on his social media platforms.pic.twitter.com/wJe4DFfWgJ

— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) January 7, 2025

 

In a video statement, Zuckerberg emphasized Meta’s desire to return to its foundational principles. “We’re gonna get back to our roots and focus on reducing mistakes, simplifying our policies, and restoring free expression on our platforms,” he said. He highlighted recent elections as a “cultural tipping point” and criticized governments and traditional media for allegedly promoting increased censorship.  

 

The CEO explained that Meta’s decision to end its fact-checking program is driven by the limitations of current systems. “We built a lot of complex systems to moderate content, but the problem with complex systems is they make mistakes,” he stated. “Even if they accidentally censor just 1% of posts, that’s millions of people, and we’ve reached a point where it’s just too many mistakes and too much censorship.”  

 

While moving away from fact-checking, Meta will continue to address high-priority violations such as drug-related content, terrorism, and child exploitation. According to Zuckerberg, automated moderation will be refined to focus on these severe cases, while community members will play a larger role in identifying and reporting other issues. “The reality is that this is a trade-off,” he admitted. “It means we’re going to catch less bad stuff, but we’ll also reduce the number of innocent people’s posts and accounts that we accidentally take down.”  

 

Zuckerberg also announced plans to move Meta’s trust and safety and content moderation team from California to Texas. He explained that content filters would be adjusted to require higher confidence levels before removing posts. Additionally, Meta will scale back some content policies around contentious topics such as immigration and gender, aiming to simplify its moderation approach and rely more on user-generated input.  

 

These changes reflect Meta’s broader commitment to embracing free speech in response to a shifting political and cultural landscape. As Zuckerberg put it, “The recent elections feel like a cultural tipping point towards, once again, prioritizing speech.”  

 

While Meta’s new approach seeks to balance reducing errors with fostering a freer exchange of ideas, it remains to be seen how the transition will impact the company’s platforms and their billions of users worldwide.

 

Based on a report by NBC 2024-01-08

 

 

[AZJA]

He is a fraud and a liar. He will block the inconveniet truth of globalists imposing world slavery.

[JonnyF]

Good to see him following Musk's lead again.

 

I wouldn't trust FaceBook's fact checkers any more than I would the BBC's.

[UWEB]

What's the difference, Zuckerberg and Fakebook was always bending facts

[FlorC]

First X , now facebook , what is next ? Aseannow ?

[spidermike007]

Zuck has surrendered. Rather than resist Trump, he has given in and shown absolute fealty to the new king. A horrific outcome. 

[Purdey]

They're eating the cats, they're eating the dogs. 

What's the confidence level Facebook?

[gargamon]

1 hour ago, FlorC said:

First X , now facebook , what is next ? Aseannow ?

Already happened.

[gargamon]

So I guess it's BlueSky now.

[Etaoin Shrdlu]

Trump's Gleichschaltung.

[RuamRudy]

I wonder how long till the stinking, corrupt corpse of Cambridge Analytica is resurrected. 

[Keep Right]

It is interesting that many left wing DEI policies are being dropped by companies as Trump ushers in the new age of Freedom of Speech. Even companies such as Meta are opening up and realizing that Biden and the Democrats have been suppressing the freedoms of the good citizens of the United States. Good times are here again.

[thaipo7]

2 hours ago, JonnyF said:

Good to see him following Musk's lead again.

 

I wouldn't trust FaceBook's fact checkers any more than I would the BBC's.

Don't forget he had dinner with Trump in FL.  Trump must have had a point for this.  Go Trump.

[connda]

This is interesting.  Talk about cosmic humor. 

"Meta Says Fact-Checkers Were the Problem. Fact-Checkers Rule That False.
 

Mark Zuckerberg, Meta’s chief executive, blamed the company’s fact-checking partners for some of Facebook’s moderation issues, saying in a video that “fact-checkers have been too politically biased” and have “destroyed more trust than they created."

Fact-checking groups that worked with Meta have taken issue with that characterization, saying they had no role in deciding what the company did with the content that was fact-checked."

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/07/business/mark-zuckerberg-meta-fact-check.html

[Will B Good]

 

Meta Shifts Focus to kowtow to Trump

 

No wonder Nick Clegg left .....only so much BS a person can tolerate.

[Will B Good]

2 hours ago, gargamon said:

Already happened.

 

You are a very naughty boy.

[gargamon]

5 minutes ago, Will B Good said:

 

You are a very naughty boy.

Thank you.

[mokwit]

I'm not a FB user, have an account but no activity. There is no way I am ever going to use FB after they censored before and there was the mic drop where Merkel asked him what he was going to do about posts against her mass immigration decision and to hurry up about it.

 

I wouldn't give FB the drippings from my nose.

 

I am also able to use Grok to much better effect than Google search and welcome not having to use that politically censored woke search engine anymore.

 

If anybody wants, I'll tell you how I really feel.

[mokwit]

11 minutes ago, connda said:

This is interesting.  Talk about cosmic humor. 

"Meta Says Fact-Checkers Were the Problem. Fact-Checkers Rule That False.
 

Mark Zuckerberg, Meta’s chief executive, blamed the company’s fact-checking partners for some of Facebook’s moderation issues, saying in a video that “fact-checkers have been too politically biased” and have “destroyed more trust than they created."

Fact-checking groups that worked with Meta have taken issue with that characterization, saying they had no role in deciding what the company did with the content that was fact-checked."

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/07/business/mark-zuckerberg-meta-fact-check.html

This is why I despise them/him.

[Screaming]

2 hours ago, Keep Right said:

It is interesting that many left wing DEI policies are being dropped by companies as Trump ushers in the new age of Freedom of Speech. Even companies such as Meta are opening up and realizing that Biden and the Democrats have been suppressing the freedoms of the good citizens of the United States. Good times are here again.

So very true and the left wing pundits are falling in line with the American voters that want a change to the draconian laws inflicted on the them by the Democrats and senile Biden.

[FlorC]

4 hours ago, gargamon said:

Already happened.

No it hasn't.

[gargamon]

42 minutes ago, FlorC said:

No it hasn't.

Whatever you say, Sue.

[WDSmart]

I am a proponent of free speech, but I never take anything I read on Meta or any other social media platform as factual. In fact, it's becoming increasingly problematic to find factual information anywhere on the Internet. Just read and enjoy them as you would, listening to stories told by a group sitting around a table and drinking beer at a bar. Just don't depend on anything you hear or read. 

I know many will disagree with me on this, but I do trust CNN. They do make mistakes once in a while, but then they acknowledge and correct them. That's, of course, IMO. 

[tomazbodner]

So I guess Trump's invasion of Greenland will be called "Special military operation" and Danish the "Nazis"?

 

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/greenland-donald-trump-jr-visit-denmark/

 

[Red Phoenix]

This is great news:

Bye-bye FACTCHECKERS and Good Riddance!

They’re fired.

Yesterday, Wired ran a surprising free-speech story headlined, “Meta’s Fact-Checking Partners Say They Were ‘Blindsided’ by Decision to Axe Them.” In other words, Facebook fired the fact-checkers, effective immediately, without notice, no severance. They’re done. The sub-headline explained, “Fact-checkers claim they had no idea the company was going to end their partnerships and are scrambling to figure out the financial implications of the move.”

 

Source: https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/blindsided-wednesday-january-8-2025

[impulse]

For years, we've been seeing lefty fact checks being treated as gospel by the lefties.  Same with the lefty websites that rate the reliability of news sources.  I can't count the number of links over the past 5 years.

 

Now it's all unraveling.  They're paid shills.  Even the Zuck has come around.  

 

[Stiddle Mump]

Never mind about the fact checkers, what about individuals that will not allow debate outside of said narratives?

 

Plenty of them about. Even more that can't see the wood for the trees.

[rattlesnake]

On 1/8/2025 at 3:22 AM, spidermike007 said:

Zuck has surrendered. Rather than resist Trump, he has given in and shown absolute fealty to the new king. A horrific outcome. 

 

He has flipped sides… Whether that is good or bad depends on a variety of subjective factors.

 

Ultimately, politics are a power struggle and whoever is in a dominant position gives the momentum. Nobody and nothing escapes this rule.

 

I, for one, am very happy about this development.

[rattlesnake]

On 1/8/2025 at 6:58 AM, mokwit said:

I'm not a FB user, have an account but no activity. There is no way I am ever going to use FB after they censored before and there was the mic drop where Merkel asked him what he was going to do about posts against her mass immigration decision and to hurry up about it.

 

I wouldn't give FB the drippings from my nose.

 

I am also able to use Grok to much better effect than Google search and welcome not having to use that politically censored woke search engine anymore.

 

If anybody wants, I'll tell you how I really feel.

 

I deleted my FB account in 2019 when Zuckerberg met up with Macron to discuss how to "fight hate speech", which translates as "Big Brother mass surveillance, censorship and listings of bad citizens".

 

Thank God this dark episode is coming to an end.

 

"If anybody wants, I'll tell you how I really feel."

Please do.