IN THE DAYS since Meta’s abrupt announcement that its fact-checking programme in the United States will end in the coming months, misinformation researchers and fact-checkers have reacted with a mixture of dismay and defiance.
On Tuesday, the social media giant said it would no longer rely on independent fact-checkers to label false or misleading content in the US – where it will instead move to the model of user-generated Community Notes introduced by X in 2021.
It came just weeks ahead of Donald Trump re-entering the White House, with Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg directly saying that the “recent elections” feel like a “cultural tipping point toward once again prioritising speech”.
The move has been a huge blow to US-based fact-checkers and more general efforts to combat misinformation on some of the world’s most-used online platforms.
Some organisations are understood to be facing closure, while others believe they may have to scale back their operations as a result of the announcement. In a 2023 survey of members of the International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN), the revenue from the Meta partnerships are cited as one of the key sources of funding for many organisations.
The end of fact-checking in the US will not happen immediately, but over the coming months; when it happens – it is thought, by March – users will no longer see images or posts blurred out with a ‘false’ or ‘misleading’ label attached, with a link to fact-checking articles by journalists.
The programme will still continue in Europe and other territories for the time being, though there is speculation about how Meta’s decision could play out on this side of the Atlantic.
Stephan Mundges, co-ordinator of the European Fact-Checking Standards Network (EFCSN), a group of more than 50 European organisations, expressed concerns about Meta and Zuckerberg’s attempts to equate fact-checking with censorship.
“Fact-checking actually provides context and more information,” he told The Journal.
“But we see in several countries across Europe that Zuckerberg’s remarks are being used by disinformers and powerful elites to attack fact-checkers and harass them.
“It is quite worrying that the head of the company that ran a successful programme for eight years is now starkly negating successes that have been highlighted by Meta itself in many instances.”
Other fact-checkers also pointed to Meta’s lack of engagement with third-party organisations about the supposed problems that Zuckerberg raised in his announcement.
The head of one European fact-checking group pointed out this week that the announcement was the first time that Meta had raised any problems with objectivity, impartiality or the ability of the programme to provide quality information to users.
For fact-checkers, the company’s supposed rationale plays into a wider pushback by conservative groups in recent years that fact-checkers as over-zealous arbiters of truth, rather than organisations that help reduce harm against society and its most vulnerable people.
In the company’s statement on Tuesday, its new head of global affairs Joel Kaplan – a high-profile Republican in the US – said that the company’s approach to content moderation had ultimately “gone too far.”
“Too much harmless content gets censored, too many people find themselves wrongly locked up in ‘Facebook jail,’” he said.
However, fact-checkers have retorted that Meta – not fact-checkers – decides whether to de-prioritise or ban pages run by those who repeatedly share misinformation.
Susan Daly, Journal Media’s Managing Editor, wrote this week that there was “a fundamental miscommunication” in Meta’s depiction this week of the role of fact-checking organisations in the 3PFC Program. The Journal FactCheck has been a fact-checking partner with Meta since 2018 and is contracted to continue as such for 2025.
She said: “They are described as using it as a ‘tool to censor’. This simply isn’t possible. Fact-checkers could never remove or block content on Meta platforms. The truth is that only Meta has the power to remove or limit access to content on its own platforms.”
Now, the company openly admits that the move will allow more of what Zuckerberg called “bad stuff” on platforms like Facebook and Instagram, which are used by more than 3 billion people.
As part of the changes this week, the latest version of Meta’s community guidelines will now allow users on its platform to accuse people of “mental illness or abnormality” based on their gender or sexual orientation.
Kaplan also said that restrictions on topics like immigration would also be lifted.
The underlying principle parrots claims by X owner Elon Musk, who has repeatedly emphasised free speech as a rationale for allowing uninhibited misinformation and hate speech on his platform since he acquired it in 2022.
Such is Musk’s attachment to the ideal of free speech that in 2023, he threatened to take the Irish government to court if it implemented hate speech legislation which aimed to protect minorities.
Meta’s decision to fall in line with Musk’s world-view – with Zuckerberg even referencing X’s model of Community Notes in Tuesday’s announcement – has left anti-racism campaigners concerned.
“Removing fact-checking and allowing lies to spread unchallenged poses a direct threat to our communities,” Edel McGinley of the Hope and Courage collective warned this week.
“This move will limit the space where democratic ideals like freedom of expression, truth-telling and safety can exist online.”
Dr Eileen Culloty, Deputy Director at the DCU Institute for Media, Democracy and Society, told The Journal that the “open disregard for truth and embrace of hateful expression” by Zuckerberg was merely “an escalation, and not a turn”.
She cited a 2023 report by Human Rights Watch that highlighted “systemic censorship of Palestine content on Instagram and Facebook” and investigators for the United Nations who blamed Facebook for its role in the ethnic cleansing of Rohingya in Myanmar.
“We shouldn’t let Musk and Zuckerberg set the agenda with their attacks on fact-checkers and journalists,” Culloty said.
“Instead, the focus should be on the audacity of the super rich trying to undermine democracy and hard-won human rights.”
The possible end of third-party fact-checking outside the United States may also put Meta on a collision course with the European Union.
Zuckerberg already fired shots at Europe on Tuesday by hitting out at the EU for what he claimed were its “ever-increasing number of laws institutionalising censorship and making it difficult to build anything innovative there”.
The remark referred to new laws in Europe, including the Digital Services Act (DSA), that require Meta and other major platforms to maintain content moderation standards or risk hefty fines.
Irish interests could be key in preventing any attempt by Meta to roll back its fact-checking efforts, particularly as the company’s European headquarters are based in Dublin.
Earlier this week, Coimisiún na Meán (CnaM) said it was “engaged with Meta” as part of an ongoing supervisory process to ensure the company’s compliance with the DSA.
The Department of Media said this would involve discussions on how Meta’s decision would relate to its community standards and the impact the decision might have on European users of platforms like Facebook and Instagram.
At a European level, Ireland’s Commissioner Michael McGrath’s brief includes consumer protection, one of the remits of the DSA, though he has yet to comment directly on Meta’s decision this week.
Irish MEPs suggested that European rules may prevent a similar roll-back of Meta’s fact-checking programme in the EU.
Fianna Fáil’s Barry Andrews told The Journal that he had “no doubt” that the removal of fact-checkers would be a violation of the DSA.
“At the very least, Meta will have to submit a risk assessment before making such a move in the EU,” he said, adding that he believed a European Commission investigation into X would prevent Meta from using Community Notes for the time being.
Fine Gael MEP Regina Doherty likewise said that Meta could not simply opt out of European laws on a whim, and expressed hope that the DSA could offer protections in the digital space.
“The EU has long sought to ensure the online space is a safe one for European citizens, and changes made by platforms will only be allowed once that is respected,” she added.
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