Bye-bye Factcheckers, and good riddance!

[Red Phoenix]

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.”

 

 

Some quotes from the interview:

“It’s time to get back to our roots…the importance of protecting free expression,”

“We built a lot of complex moderation systems that make mistakes. (But) the recent election feels like a cultural tipping point. So we’re going to get rid of fact-checkers and replace them with community notes, like X.”

“What started as a movement to be more inclusive has increasingly been used to shut down opinions and people with different ideas, and it’s gone too far.”

“The fact-checkers have been too politically biased and have destroyed more trust than they’ve created, so we’re going to phase in a community notes system.”

 

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

 

and here the link to the 5 minute clip in which Zuckerberg announced the immediate policy-change:

https://x.com/esaagar/status/1876612227807236310

 

Conclusion: He does not want to fight. He wants to survive.

 

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[CharlieH]