Meta ditches the fact-checkers

Meta started off 2025 with a grand announcement in early January. CEO Mark Zuckerberg, sporting a new luscious mop of hair, declared that Facebook and Instagram would be dialling back on fact-checking and content moderation operations. In recent years, Facebook's moderation policies have been met with mixed reactions due to allegedly Left-leaning biases within the fact-checking. 

What it effectively meant was that if your Facebook posts have ever received a warning for saying things that the fact-checkers considered offensive or untrue, you were about to no longer be in danger of that. In particular, if you were of the Right-leaning persuasion, you might find your content no longer under scrutiny or censored in the name of "preventing the spread of misinformation".

Censored by Facebook.

I've never had much of a problem with that censorship. It's annoying when it happens, sure, but I don't get censored much. Mostly because being Singaporean, I tend to post things that don't actually make sense in English. The thing about having your own slang in a multi-cultural country is that you tend to go that way when feeling particularly strongly about something. In other words, we Singaporeans can be offensive in multiple languages, not just one. Go, us!

And also because I don't go onto Facebook or Instagram to look for Right-leaning opinions. Or Left-leaning ones, for that matter. These platforms just don't represent that kind of value for me. I'm more about the DIY and origami videos

Motivations

Mark Zuckerberg is a highly accomplished man, but with this move, even by his lofty standards, he achieved something truly remarkable. In a country where deep political divisions exist, he's managed to turn both the Left and the Right sides of the political aisle against him. Many on the Left think that he's a turncoat who sold out by adopting this bend-the-knee approach towards Donald Trump. On the Right, there's a sentiment that someone with no principles, who could abandon his stand just like that just because Donald Trump is the one soon to be in power, can't be trusted.

And both sides, of course, in not so many words, accuse Zuckerberg of trimming his sails in response to the directions the political winds blow in the USA.

Trimming their sails.

Honestly, from my privileged position of not caring a whit about the outcome of the culture wars in the USA, I fail to see the problem. 

Sure, Zuckerberg said this.

What started as a movement to be more inclusive has increasingly been used to shut down opinions and shut out people with different ideas, and it's gone too far. So, I want to make sure that people can share their beliefs and experiences on our platforms.

As far as I'm concerned, no matter how he may pontificate to the contrary, Zuckerberg has never been a champion for Free Speech. The mere thought elicits a chuckle. Zuckerberg's a businessman, first and foremost, and if it takes a certain amount of ass-kissing (even if said posterior belongs to a certain Donald J Trump) to get ahead, so be it. Zuckerberg isn't betraying anything or embracing some virtue. As a business owner, his first duty isn't to Free Speech - and if he's ever given you a different impression, I'm afraid that's on you - but to business. He's simply doing the sensible thing for Meta.

So what if Zuckerberg's only doing this because Donald Trump won the election? So what if he's only trying to ensure Meta survives at least till the next election four years later? What else is he supposed to do, sacrifice his business for high-minded ideals that some randos on the internet like to squawk about?

The plan is to move the moderation team to Texas. Assuming that the majority of the existing team can't simply just uproot themselves, the result would be some kind of voluntary mass resignation. Considering that Zuckerberg recently talked about replacing programmers in Meta with A.I by this year, I think it's safe to assume that there's a drive to reduce headcount at Meta that ties in nicely with the move to Texas. That would represent significant cost savings for Meta, if nothing else.

What next for Meta?

The CEO of X, one Linda Yaccarino, congratulated Meta on the change. 

I think it’s really exciting when you think about community notes being good for the world... and it couldn’t be more validating than to see that Mark and Meta realize that. Mark, Meta, welcome to the party.

Welcome to the party? Geez.

This may be due to me being Asian, coming from a culture that normalizes sarcasm and therefore being suspicious of everything, including (and especially) things that sound like compliments. But it feels like some serious shade is being thrown here. She might as well have said "welcome to the twenty-first century!".

Twitter-shaped shade
disguised as a Like.

That aside, I would like to address another thing Zuckerberg said.

We tried in good faith to address those concerns without becoming the arbiters of truth, but the fact-checkers have just been too politically biased and have destroyed more trust than they've created, especially in the US.

Jesus, what was his first clue?!

Anyway, what does this change for Facebook? People have been attempting to push their political and ideological agendas on Social Media for over a decade now. It's just not that big a deal any more. You can throw all the Left or Right-leaning content in peoples' faces all day; you're not converting anyone. All it will probably accomplish is that now Facebook is no longer a Leftist echo chamber, people are just going elsewhere to find more suitable echo chambers. But absolutely no one is going to be coming onto Facebook in search of the truth.

In the larger picture, I'm not sure if anyone lets themselves be influenced by Social Media any more. To what end? Social Media is filled with people who are, in all likelihood, just as ignorant and unenlightened as everyone else. Anyone who's actually looking to have their opinions shaped by Social Media, is probably not playing with a full deck in the first place. To say nothing of the sort who have maybe a few thousand Followers and think their constant political posts on Social Media make any kind of difference.

Come to think of it, now with A.I coming up, we won't even need all these users anymore. Speak complete rubbish with utmost confidence? A.I can do that, and much faster too!

Ultimately...

One half of the USA is feeling great about the change, and the other half is feeling pretty sore. This is going to be an unpopular opinion, but none of that matters. For Meta's Social Media business, the writing was on the wall a long time ago. I see them becoming progressively less relevant. They'll always have a place in history, but in four to eight years, this may be exactly all they have left.

Facts man, facts!
T___T