Meta goes MAGA
On Tuesday morning, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced changes to how the company will handle content moderation across Facebook, Instagram, and Threads. Each aspect of Zuckerberg's announcement appeared designed to ingratiate the company with President-elect Donald Trump and his MAGA base.
For example, Zuckerberg said that Meta would "move its Trust and Safety and Content Moderation teams out of California and our U.S.-based content review is going to be based in Texas." According to Zuckerberg, "as we work to promote free expression, I think it will help us build trust to do this work in places where there is less concern about the bias of our teams."
The only people who believe that people in California are inherently more biased than people in Texas are right-wing partisans. The reality is that there are millions of conservative people in California and millions of liberal people in Texas. And content moderators are only enforcing policies created by Zuckerberg and his executive team. But moving part of Meta to Texas allows Zuckerberg to follow the lead of Elon Musk, who has relocated the headquarters of Tesla and X to Texas.
The idea, advanced by Zuckerberg in his announcement, that Texas is a bastion of free speech is also a myth. Last month, for example, Texas Governor Greg Abbott (R) "threatened to pull funding from Texas Children’s Hospital" because a doctor in Houston posted a viral TikTok video advising patients that they do not have to answer questions about their citizenship status. After Abbott's threats, the video was taken down. In 2021, Texas enacted a law censoring how teachers can discuss race and gender in the classroom. Since 2017, Texas has had a law requiring most companies doing business with the state to sign a statement about their views on Israel.
Zuckerberg's announcement on Tuesday followed a series of other moves calculated to curry favor with Trump. Meta has donated $1 million to Trump's second inauguration celebration. Zuckerberg promoted Joel Kaplan, a Republican operative and close associate of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, as the Meta's Chief Global Affairs Officer. (Kaplan appeared on Fox & Friends on Tuesday morning to promote Meta's content moderation changes.) And on Monday, Zuckerberg announced that Dana White, the CEO of UFC and close friend of Trump, would join Meta's board of directors.
Meta's charm offensive appears to be working. "They've come a long way. Meta. Facebook," Trump said at a press conference on Tuesday.
Meta did not respond to a request for comment.
Fact-checking Zuckerberg's claims about fact-checkers
Zuckerberg also announced that Meta will "get rid of fact-checkers and replace them with community notes similar to X, starting in the US." He justified this move by attacking the professional journalists that Meta has partnered with since 2016. Zuckerberg said that "fact-checkers have just been too politically biased and have destroyed more trust than they've created, especially in the U.S."
Zuckerberg did not provide any examples or evidence to support his claim. Lead Stories, Facebook's most prolific fact-checking partner, said Tuesday that in "all the years we have been part of the partnership, we… never received any complaints from Meta about any political bias, so we were quite surprised by this statement."
But Zuckerberg's new position is likely to please Trump, whose 2024 campaign "waged an aggressive campaign against fact-checking in recent months, pushing TV networks, journalism organizations and others to abandon the practice." Trump's pick to chair the FCC, Brendan Carr, sent a letter to Meta and other tech companies in November accusing them of participating in a "censorship cartel" by using fact-checkers.
Meta's fact-checking program was designed by the company, not journalists. It was intended to insulate the company from responsibility for misinformation that spread on the platform. As part of Meta's program, it partnered with and provided financial support to certain fact-checkers certified by the International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN). Meta chose when and how to use these fact checks across its platforms.
Over the years, Meta took a number of steps that made its fact-checking program ineffective. For example, it banned all fact-checks of politicians. And, as Popular Information reported, Meta pressured the IFCN to certify low-quality right-wing websites, including the Daily Caller, as fact-checkers. The Daily Caller then used its position to downrank factually accurate articles that cast Trump in a negative light. Meta also used fact-checks produced by journalists to "inform their automated systems, sometimes leading to erroneous application of labels that fact-checkers were unfairly blamed for."
Meta's investment in fact-checking was very small and, as a result, fact-checks were only conducted on a tiny fraction of the content posted to its platforms. In 2019, for example, Meta had $71 billion in revenue and paid Lead Stories $359,000. Popular Information estimated that, overall, Meta devoted 0.003% of its 2019 revenue to fact-checking.
Meta's fact-checking partners were not happy about being thrown under the bus. "It’s unfortunate that this decision comes in the wake of extreme political pressure from a new administration and its supporters," Angie Drobnic Holan, director of the IFCN, said in a statement to Popular Information. "Fact-checkers have not been biased in their work -- that attack line comes from those who feel they should be able to exaggerate and lie without rebuttal or contradiction."
A green light for hate speech
Zuckerberg also announced that Meta would "get rid of a bunch of content restrictions on immigration and gender that are just out of touch with mainstream discourse." The previous restrictions on immigration and gender content on Meta platforms involved hate speech.
The new rules permit users to “call for exclusion or use insulting language in the context of discussing political or religious topics, such as when discussing transgender rights, immigration, or homosexuality.” Specifically, it is now permissible to describe people as feces or filth based on their immigration status or gender identity. Meta also now allows “allegations of mental illness or abnormality when based on gender or sexual orientation, given political and religious discourse about transgenderism and homosexuality.”
Whether attempting to limit this kind of hateful speech is effective is the subject of debate. But Zuckerberg says Meta's current restrictions on hate speech, which he oversees as the company's CEO, are actually an effort to "shut down opinions and shut out people with different ideas." Disparaging immigrants or people with certain gender identities, however, is not an "idea" or a meaningful component of "mainstream discourse."
Zuckerberg attacks Biden
Zuckerberg's announcement also included a direct attack on the Biden administration, which he accused of "going after us and other American companies" in a "push for censorship."
What is Zuckerberg talking about? He does not provide details, but it appears to reference complaints about the Biden administration that he included in an August 26 letter to Congressman Jim Jordan (R-OH). In the letter, Zuckerberg says that the Biden administration "pressured" the company to take down certain misinformation about COVID-19. The only example of "pressure" Zuckerberg describes is that White House staff "expressed a lot of frustration" when Meta did not agree with the White House's position. Zuckerberg admits that it was Meta's decision "whether or not to take content down."
On this basis, Zuckerberg casts the Biden administration as an enemy of free speech. He then celebrates Trump's election, calling it an "opportunity to restore free expression."
Now Meta will stop suppressing political content
Starting in April 2024, Meta decided to suppress all political content on its platforms. Specifically, it would not recommend this content to anyone that wasn't already following the user who posted it. And users who frequently posted political content were not recommended at all. Reaching new audiences is a central feature of social media.
No one asked Meta to do this. It was a decision the company made to avoid controversy and focus on more profitable areas like entertainment and sports.
Zuckerberg announced on Monday that Meta was "bringing back civic content." While the announcement was welcome, the timing is suspect. The announcement comes just before Trump returns to the White House. And it comes with a caveat. While Meta will resume recommending political content, it will do so while "working to keep the communities friendly and positive." The move to feature "positive" political commentary with Trump in the White House comes days after a similar announcement by Musk on X.
When you live in fear of fact checkers, that says more than any policy you can introduce.
Zuckerberg is bending the knee to kiss the whatever of Trump, he is making bazillions more in profits while being less accountable, and he is hurting our youth. Studies have shown that Facebook and Instagram cause depression and self harm. This is especially true for young girls who think the filtered and AI generated images are real. This is a shameful stain on our culture and the tech oligarchs are showing themselves to be a disease!