Zuckerberg's free speech push for Facebook and Instagram replaces fact checkers with community notes

[midian182]

A hot potato: It seems that Meta is going to become a lot more like X, at least when it comes to what you can say on the company's platforms. CEO Mark Zuckerberg has announced the suspension of the fact-checking program, a reduction in the amount of censorship, and the recommendation of more political content across Facebook, Instagram, and Threads.

In a video announcing the changes, Zuckerberg says Meta has built a lot of complex systems to moderate content, "But the problem with complex systems is they make mistakes."

Zuckerberg adds that accidentally censoring just one percent of posts can affect millions of people, and that we're at the point now where there have been too many mistakes and "too much censorship."

 

 

 

 

View this post on Instagram

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A post shared by Mark Zuckerberg (@zuck)

"The recent elections also feel like a cultural tipping point towards once again prioritizing free speech," Zuckerberg continued.

Coming to the US first in the next couple of months, Meta's biggest change is the replacement of third-party fact checkers with community notes, which have gained popularity on X. Zuckerberg claims that fact checkers have become too politically biased and have destroyed more trust than they created.

The notes will appear as labels on posts indicating that there is additional information. To prevent bias, the notes will "require agreement between people with a range of perspectives." Meta is also dialing back the prominence of content warning labels.

Meta is also going to "simplify" its content policies, removing restrictions on topics such as immigration and gender that "are just out of touch with mainstream discourse."

"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."

Another change is the way Meta enforces its policies on platforms. Filters that used to scan for any policy violation will now focus on illegal and high-severity violations such as terrorism, child sexual exploitation, drugs, fraud, and scams. The company will rely on users to report lower-priority violation before it takes any action. Zuckerberg believes this will dramatically reduce the amount of censorship on the platforms.

The final change is the return of civic content, which was removed in 2021 due to political misinformation concerns. Zuckerberg said Meta will work to keep civic and political discourse "friendly and positive."

The next change is to move Meta's Trust and Safety and Content Moderation teams from California to Texas and other US locations. Zuckerberg said as Meta works to promote free expression, it will help build trust to do this work in places where there is less concern about bias from the teams.

Finally, the CEO said Meta will work with President Trump to push back against governments around the world that have been "going after" American companies and pushing to censor more. He claims that Europe's ever-increasing number of censorship laws make it difficult to build anything innovative in the continent. Zuckerberg specifically mentions Latin American courts and China trying to push more censorship.

The announcement comes days after former UK deputy prime minister Nick Clegg said he was resigning as Meta's president of global affairs, replaced by Republican Joel Kaplan. The company has also appointed UFC CEO Dana White to its board.

While Meta's changes will likely be welcomed by the incoming president, Trump has had a strained relationship with Zuckerberg in the past. Facebook banned the president-elect for two years shortly after the January 6 insurrection in 2021. Trump has also called Facebook the enemy of the people, accused Zuckerberg of plotting against him during the 2020 election, and said he would "spend the rest of his life in prison" if he ever did it again. But Zuckerberg was quick to congratulate Trump on his re-election. Meta also donated $1 million to an inauguration fund for Trump.

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Zuckerberg's free speech push for Facebook and Instagram replaces fact checkers with community notes

 

[toooooot]

Does anyone know why after so many years, he suddenly cares for free speech and ending sensoring?
I will sincerely guess that the decision came from the bottom of his lizard heart.

 

[Nintenboy01]

Does anyone know why after so many years, he suddenly cares for free speech and ending sensoring?
I will sincerely guess that the decision came from the bottom of his lizard heart.

It's to placate the incoming Trump admin for sure and make them look the other way. Zuck loves money after all, and seems rather paranoid since his sprawling Hawaii property has a network of underground bunkers and advanced security systems.

 

[Underdog]

OH happy day! Without any fact checking in place, people will be totally free to tell lies and influence the hard of thinking populace (aka: "sheeple) to believe anything that suits their political agenda.
Freedom to post unsubstantiated drivel to look like facts doesn't sound like the best idea.

 

[emmzo]

OH happy day! Without any fact checking in place, people will be totally free to tell lies and influence the hard of thinking populace (aka: "sheeple) to believe anything that suits their political agenda.
Freedom to post unsubstantiated drivel to look like facts doesn't sound like the best idea.

Any type of censoring destroys the freedom of speech, because you are basically saying some people have no discernment while others are entitled to a higher moral standard thus they are always right. Classic communism, nowadays revamped by progressivism. You surely seem to think people that think differently than you are "sheeple", but you don`t understand that just by being human and thus subjective, you are just as vulnerable to bias and lies that fit your way of thinking. But many people that live in democratic countries don`t understand democracy anymore. The freedom of speech, the respect for different opinions is what drives a healthy society not shutting down, censoring, demonizing, insulting and ridiculing the ones we disagree with. As for fact checking, give me a break. Anyone can pick and choose "facts" to create a false narrative in the big picture. Legacy media does this routinely.

 

[pnntmp]

LOL what an amazing change of heart
Zuck is trembling like a leaf, and should be.

This late, partial and obviously insincere return to normalcy will not compensate for banning the sitting President, or for killing a story about his opponent right before the election, or for the colossal amounts of gaslighting and misinformation spread through Fecebook and other Meta platforms, or for the rampant censorship ...

 

[Plutoisaplanet]

Does anyone know why after so many years, he suddenly cares for free speech and ending sensoring?
I will sincerely guess that the decision came from the bottom of his lizard heart.

Because he copies what works. Otherwise Snapchat would’ve replaced Instagram at this point.

Also, Meta’s Oversight Board has shown that moderation at Facebook has been continuously been getting it wrong: https://www.oversightboard.com/news/

 

[lonetac]

Any type of censoring destroys the freedom of speech, because you are basically saying some people have no discernment while others are entitled to a higher moral standard thus they are always right. Classic communism, nowadays revamped by progressivism. You surely seem to think people that think differently than you are "sheeple", but you don`t understand that just by being human and thus subjective, you are just as vulnerable to bias and lies that fit your way of thinking. But many people that live in democratic countries don`t understand democracy anymore. The freedom of speech, the respect for different opinions is what drives a healthy society not shutting down, censoring, demonizing, insulting and ridiculing the ones we disagree with. As for fact checking, give me a break. Anyone can pick and choose "facts" to create a false narrative in the big picture. Legacy media does this routinely.

In the context of America's interpretation of freedom of speech, its often misunderstood and polluted with opinions from folks who dont understand the context.

Freedom of speech is simply you can speak out against the government and not be arrested. its not about saying whatever you want whenver you want without repricussions. Folks pollute the actual meaning of it so much its getting really old.

The other thing is, fact checkers are not censoring freedom of speech. They are pointing out something is a lie, fake, made up or has no scientific backing. Thats not censoring.

Censoring is what Elon does everytime he removes a post on his free speech platform called X because he doesnt like the person.

 

[GodisanAtheist]

I for one welcome the accellerationism and descent into strife and anarchy social media represents.

Zuck has his compounds and underground bunkers for a reason, after all.

The glue the holds a society together, the shared lies that form the bedrock of our commonality, they'll be gone within a generation or two.

We will be digital neighbors in digital communities with people thousands of miles from us, while our neighbors will become strangers and alien.

 

[Kotters]

Good

 

[Rumiku]

In the context of America's interpretation of freedom of speech, its often misunderstood and polluted with opinions from folks who dont understand the context.

Freedom of speech is simply you can speak out against the government and not be arrested. its not about saying whatever you want whenver you want without repricussions. Folks pollute the actual meaning of it so much its getting really old.

The other thing is, fact checkers are not censoring freedom of speech. They are pointing out something is a lie, fake, made up or has no scientific backing. Thats not censoring.

Censoring is what Elon does everytime he removes a post on his free speech platform called X because he doesnt like the person.

I don't believe you refuted his argument. It does not appear he mentioned the 1st amendment of the constitution. He only stated "freedom of speech", then went on to make a valid point concerning both the article and the comment he was responding to. Freedom of speech, that is, speech that is not censored, removed, forced or coerced are quite necessary to a free society to flourish. An open exchange on thoughts and ideas.

This does, of course, bring with it the possibility and risk of speech you or others might find offensive, wrong, insulting, denigrating or outright silly; that is the cost required so that even you, yourself, can speak freely.

For your other points:
Fact Checking: He did not conflate, abridge or connect his first point with fact checking. He simply stated ("as for") that fact checking was abused and often bent to an agenda (my summarization); which itself is a factual statement: The media routinely has lied or produced a "fact check" that uses out of context points, erects a false dichotomy or itself was simply wrong, in order to mislead the public.

Elon Musk: We agree and I am sure that even Emmzo would agree, that removing of X/Twitter posts by Elon violates the very same principles espoused in his (Emmzo's)own post. It is the very antithesis of freedom of speech.

 

[axiomatic13]

LOL, free reign for the horsepaste eaters!

 

[kinetix]

I've even seen some "fact checkers" manipulate data to fit their "checks." One even inverted a map (rotated north-south) (WTF!!) so that a crucial aspect of something happened was as they said, and of course, 99.99% of whoever read it wouldn't notice.

 

[lonetac]

I don't believe you refuted his argument. It does not appear he mentioned the 1st amendment of the constitution. He only stated "freedom of speech", then went on to make a valid point concerning both the article and the comment he was responding to. Freedom of speech, that is, speech that is not censored, removed, forced or coerced are quite necessary to a free society to flourish. An open exchange on thoughts and ideas.

This does, of course, bring with it the possibility and risk of speech you or others might find offensive, wrong, insulting, denigrating or outright silly; that is the cost required so that even you, yourself, can speak freely.

For your other points:
Fact Checking: He did not conflate, abridge or connect his first point with fact checking. He simply stated ("as for") that fact checking was abused and often bent to an agenda (my summarization); which itself is a factual statement: The media routinely has lied or produced a "fact check" that uses out of context points, erects a false dichotomy or itself was simply wrong, in order to mislead the public.

Elon Musk: We agree and I am sure that even Emmzo would agree, that removing of X/Twitter posts by Elon violates the very same principles espoused in his (Emmzo's)own post. It is the very antithesis of freedom of speech.

I concede, I assumed we were talking about the first amendment given the first amendment includes "Freedom of speech". Lord knows I have dealt with enough "free speech" hard heads who are largely folks who get upset that they got some repercussions or were not able to post something extremely hurtful or hateful somewhere public and start immediately screaming "ma free speech". Not saying you or Emmzo are that person. Its just very common. You can probably relate.

The amount of Americans who dont understand what free speech means in context of the 1st amendment is baffling. I was very clear in saying, in context to the 1st amendment as it wasnt immediately clear to me if thats what we were talking about. I hope that clarifies.

The media continually pushes agendas on every side. Yes, sometimes they get things right, sometimes they get things wrong. I didnt talk about the media routinely lying. Fact checkers are not main stream media (I know CNN and Fox act like they fact check but they are not the fact checkers, think snopes or politifact which use sourced quotes). What Facebook was doing was more flagging stories that were blatent lies and have no factual backing. That isnt censoring. They certainly didnt do it perfectly and should be held accountable to do it better. We have a massive issue with a lot of folks who are just saying whatever comes to them in their heads (look at korean drones, eating cats/dogs and gas fog lately) but even go further up and look at MTG and others. The media helps push these stories and fact checkers help us sift through the noise.

The days of accepting someones ridiculous take because its their "opnion" is a full stop for me. I will not accept absurdidy. Someone is welcome to think the world is flat, I am not going to capitulate to that kind of rhetoric and give it any form of value other than flat out dismissing the person as a crazy.

In the now age where you have high leaders talking about taking over Panama and Greenland and all these other ridiculous things, we need to resist the ridiculousness of this stuff flat out. Remember nuking hurricanes or the government created the hurricanes. So we are creating them and want to nuke them to stop them. Its just so stupid already.

Ill trust a fact checker over any of the clowns running our government 7 days a week based on what I hear coming out of their mouths. At least the fact checker sources the reasons so I can dive into it deeper.

I have meant no offense to Emmzo or yourself.

 

[Rumiku]

I concede, I assumed we were talking about the first amendment given the first amendment includes "Freedom of speech". Lord knows I have dealt with enough "free speech" hard heads who are largely folks who get upset that they got some repercussions or were not able to post something extremely hurtful or hateful somewhere public and start immediately screaming "ma free speech". Not saying you or Emmzo are that person. Its just very common. You can probably relate.

The amount of Americans who dont understand what free speech means in context of the 1st amendment is baffling. I was very clear in saying, in context to the 1st amendment as it wasnt immediately clear to me if thats what we were talking about. I hope that clarifies.

The media continually pushes agendas on every side. Yes, sometimes they get things right, sometimes they get things wrong. I didnt talk about the media routinely lying. Fact checkers are not main stream media (I know CNN and Fox act like they fact check but they are not the fact checkers, think snopes or politifact which use sourced quotes). What Facebook was doing was more flagging stories that were blatent lies and have no factual backing. That isnt censoring. They certainly didnt do it perfectly and should be held accountable to do it better. We have a massive issue with a lot of folks who are just saying whatever comes to them in their heads (look at korean drones, eating cats/dogs and gas fog lately) but even go further up and look at MTG and others. The media helps push these stories and fact checkers help us sift through the noise.

The days of accepting someones ridiculous take because its their "opnion" is a full stop for me. I will not accept absurdidy. Someone is welcome to think the world is flat, I am not going to capitulate to that kind of rhetoric and give it any form of value other than flat out dismissing the person as a crazy.

In the now age where you have high leaders talking about taking over Panama and Greenland and all these other ridiculous things, we need to resist the ridiculousness of this stuff flat out. Remember nuking hurricanes or the government created the hurricanes. So we are creating them and want to nuke them to stop them. Its just so stupid already.

Ill trust a fact checker over any of the clowns running our government 7 days a week based on what I hear coming out of their mouths. At least the fact checker sources the reasons so I can dive into it deeper.

I have meant no offense to Emmzo or yourself.

No offense taken; at least for myself. This is the very gravamen of discourse. Even when discussions turn heated (as they may with impassioned topics); as long as both parties can shake hands at the end like civil adults, progress was made.

 

[Dimitrios]

I used to like Zuckerberg when I was in high school. I quickly learned that he was a bad person just by him putting tape on his laptop camera ( raised a red flag ) and also reading the comments on Techspot comment section, which were mostly true.

He needs to be held accountable. The Biden admin made sure no one will talk about the truth of COVID, open borders, crime rate, migrant/trans crime. I have saved many of my bans and finally gave up on Fakebook. I got banned many times and warning even pro trump stuff. The one that really got to me was when I had COVID friends and family asked me how I dealt with it. I said a lot of vegetables, dark maple syrup ( high antioxidants) a lot of eggs due to its high amount of mins/vits. Even back then it was proven, high amounts from Vitamin D was one of the best ways to beat COVID. Somehow, Fakebook found out about that post within mins.

 

[airbornex]

Meta simplifying content policies might help reduce censorship mistakes, but partnering with Dana White and Trump to fight 'government overreach' sounds like the weirdest tag team in social media history. Who’s next, Joe Rogan moderating civic discussions?

 

[Dimitrios]

Meta simplifying content policies might help reduce censorship mistakes, but partnering with Dana White and Trump to fight 'government overreach' sounds like the weirdest tag team in social media history. Who’s next, Joe Rogan moderating civic discussions?

Well it's better than having Greta, AOC or Hunter in charge. I really can't comment on Dana White, he does really love this country though.

 

[Endymio]

The other thing is, fact checkers are not censoring freedom of speech. They are pointing out something is a lie, fake, made up or has no scientific backing. Thats not censoring.

Oops! When a "fact checker" claims a true statement is false, and has it removed -- and often the person who posted it banned -- that is the very textbook definition of censorship.

 

[lonetac]

Meta simplifying content policies might help reduce censorship mistakes, but partnering with Dana White and Trump to fight 'government overreach' sounds like the weirdest tag team in social media history. Who’s next, Joe Rogan moderating civic discussions?

Well said.

 

[Endymio]

Meta simplifying content policies might help reduce censorship mistakes, but partnering with Dana White and Trump to fight 'government overreach' sounds like the weirdest tag team in social media history.

You're confused. It was the Biden Administration continually attempting to expand the sway of federal authority, and the Biden Administration that a federal judge found to be illegally colluding with social media firms to censor true, but politically damaging speech. Meanwhile, in Trump's first term, his requirement that federal agencies must remove two existing new regulations for every new one they wished brought about the first-ever reduction in the federal code in US history.

 

[candle86]

Fact checkers are fine when it's actual facts, but not one fact checker ever fact checked that Lincoln watched TV or Julius Ceaser made a mean salad, what they did do was fact check science and discussions that even still are not settled, take the vaccine, they fact checked anyone who said there might be risks, when we know today there is increased risk of cardio vascular issues for people who took the vaccine, they fact checked anyone saying cloth masks are useless, when in 2020 the HHS had data that said cloth masks are not tight fitting enough nor are the fiber's woven tight enough to be effective at reducing transmission and that data is even better understood today, but fact checkers had an agenda, and its time we acknowledge that agenda.

 

[BogdanR]

Wait!!! Facebook had fact checking?

 

[Reachable]

These are almost all good moves and signify real progress. I am not a Trump fan by any stretch of the imagination, but the same Establishment that doesn't tolerate narratives that might damages its objectives now employs the devious trick of trying to paint any dissenter on almost any issue as a "right-wing Trumpian".

 

[VectorVortec]

In the context of America's interpretation of freedom of speech, its often misunderstood and polluted with opinions from folks who dont understand the context.

Freedom of speech is simply you can speak out against the government and not be arrested. its not about saying whatever you want whenver you want without repricussions. Folks pollute the actual meaning of it so much its getting really old.

The other thing is, fact checkers are not censoring freedom of speech. They are pointing out something is a lie, fake, made up or has no scientific backing. Thats not censoring.

Censoring is what Elon does everytime he removes a post on his free speech platform called X because he doesnt like the person.

Fact checkers are wrong more often than the average guy on the street. When they get it wrong, the user gets cancelled. So much so, that they have a number of ways to ostracize the user, and in some cases, the user doesn't even know that he has been disrespected.