US President Joe Biden is tough criticized Meta’s decision to drop its fact-checking program on its social networks, such as Facebook, Instagram and Threads.
This week, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced that the company is ending cooperation with fact-checkers that verified posts for authenticity as part of a program launched in 2020. Users will now be able to self-verify information with a new moderation feature similar to the “Community Notes” system in Elon Musk’s X platform.
President Biden expressed outrage at the decision to White House reporters, calling it “a real disgrace.” He emphasized that telling the truth is a core value of American society.
“The idea that a billionaire can buy something and just decide, ‘We’re not going to check anything else,’ goes against all of our principles.”, — noted Biden.
Mark Zuckerberg, justifying the decision, said that Meta seeks to return to its “roots” of freedom of speech. He acknowledged that the fact-checking program had come under fire for “numerous errors and excessive censorship” that he said had undermined user trust.
Meta’s decision received approval from Donald Trump, who said the company had done a “great job”. At the same time, critics fear that the abolition of fact-checking could lead to the spread of misinformation, especially in the run-up to the US presidential election.
