‘Zuckerberg wants to get the political wind at his back by ending fact checks’

This article was last updated on January 8, 2025

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‘Zuckerberg wants to get the political wind at his back by ending fact checks’

Experts are concerned about tech giant Meta’s decision to stop collaborating with fact-checkers in the United States. They argue that CEO Mark Zuckerberg is mainly doing this to curry favor with incoming President Donald Trump.

Fact checker Peter Burger, affiliated with Leiden University, calls the announcement shocking. “There has been a lot of discussion about what happened to Twitter under Elon Musk. Meta seemed different because of its collaboration with fact checkers. With this decision, Zuckerberg is radically opposing his own policy and is therefore fully in line with Trump’s and Musk’s story: freedom of expression is above all else, the rest is interference and censorship.”

Zuckerberg made the change of course announced yesterday in a video message. He says Meta’s fact-checkers, including journalists from major international news agencies, are “politically biased.” “We have reached the point where there are simply too many mistakes and too much censorship. The fact-checkers have done more harm than good to the trust.”

In his announcement, Zuckerberg does not hide the fact that the decision stems from the new political wind blowing through America. He calls Donald Trump’s election win a “cultural turning point” that puts the priority back on freedom of expression.

You could already see that Zuckerberg was moving towards Trump, but I didn’t expect it to happen so quickly.

Sander van der Waal

The relationship between Trump and Zuckerberg has been far from friendly in the past. After the Capitol storming in 2021, Trump banned from Facebook and Instagram and last summer Trump threatened that Zuckerberg would… prison if he were to interfere in the presidential elections.

But since Trump’s re-election, Zuckerberg has made several overtures. Shortly after the election results, Zuckerberg had dinner with Trump at his home in Mar-a-Lago. In addition, Meta donated a million dollars for Trump’s inauguration and Zuckerberg suggested the conservative Joel Kaplan as head of international policy at Meta.

In a press conference yesterday praised Trump criticized Zuckerberg’s decision, saying the change of course is “probably” a response to Trump’s previous threats.

Immigration and gender

“You already saw that Zuckerberg was moving towards Trump, but I did not expect it to happen so quickly,” says Sander van der Waal of research institute Waag Futurelab. “Zuckerberg clearly seems to want to ingratiate himself with conservatives in the US with his announcement.”

Zuckerberg says, among other things, that he wants to lift restrictions on topics such as immigration and gender, two important campaign issues for Trump. For example, users would be allowed to link mental illnesses to sexual orientation. Fact checker Burger: “When I hear all this, I think Meta is going in the direction of X: more hate messages, more disinformation, racism, sexism and anti-Semitism.”

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According to Marietje Schaake, technology policy expert and former MEP for D66, Meta “abandons any illusion that it wants to take responsibility for harmful content on their platforms” with this decision. As a Member of the European Parliament and now, Schaake is closely involved in international decision-making regarding technology.

According to her, the change of course is beneficial for Zuckerberg because it is cheaper to work without fact checkers. “And because of the political wind in America. Zuckerberg wants that wind at his back, not in his face.”

Community Notes

To replace the fact checkers, Meta will work with a system where other users can comment on potentially misleading reporting, similar to the Community Notes on X.

Fact checker Peter Burger says that the system certainly has useful aspects, but that it is not a full-fledged replacement. “The idea behind the fact checkers was that they are outside professionals. They are paid for their work, but not substantively controlled. Community Notes do point out if something is incorrect, but context or links to sources are missing. You will find those things at the fact checks.”

Europe

At the beginning of last year, two new laws came into force in the EU, the Digital Service Act and Digital Market Act, which should curb the power of tech giants. Meta’s new policy will first take effect in the US, but Zuckerberg says he wants to “work with the new Trump administration to fight against governments that attack American companies and impose more censorship.”

According to Schaake, he is undoubtedly referring to Europe. Schaake: “These new laws still have to prove themselves. But I will not be surprised if the European Commission, under pressure from trade barriers, Trump and Musk, will approach the enforcement of these laws less ambitiously than necessary.”