As disinformation and fake news multiply on the Internet, Meta decides to delete its fact-checking program on Facebook, Instagram and Thread. A political decision which opens the door to the worst excesses.

As disinformation and fake news multiply on the Internet, Meta decides to remove its fact-checking program on Facebook, Instagram and Thread. A political decision which opens the door to the worst excesses.

Social networks are popular with Internet users to find out in a few seconds information from around the world, including to try to understand the political unrest that is shaking the country. However, given the quantity of sources available, we can quickly find ourselves lost and have difficulty determining reliable and relevant data. Especially since certain actors play on this in order to spread fake news and influence public opinion, particularly during elections.

Faced with disinformation, platforms adopt radically different attitudes. Some are working to implement tools to detect misleading information or images. And others, on the contrary, have absolutely nothing to do with it, or even have an interest in encouraging it. This is the case of Meta, who makes us an Elon Musk by announcingon January 7, end its fact-checking program in the United States. A major setback in its content moderation policy…

End of fact-checking: a system accused of making too many errors

With its fact checking program, Meta pays more than 80 media outlets around the world to verify publications on its social networks Facebook, Instagram and Threads. In the USA, ten media outlets or organizations are now seeing their collaboration stop without notice. In France, we can cite AFP and Les Surligneurs. With this system, publications deemed false or misleading are assigned a small label, their visibility is then limited, Internet users who published them are informed and, if they repeat the offense, may be subject to restrictions.

But this operation no longer seems to suit Mark Zuckerberg, who affirms, speaking of fact-checking and other posts deleted from the platforms that there are “too many mistakes”. “Even if only 1% of publications are censored by accident, that’s millions of people. That’s too many errors, and too much censorship”he says. An argument that hardly convinces.

As revealed FranceInfoMeta revealed, in a report submitted to the European Commission in October 2024, figures aimed at showing to what extent Facebook actually complies with the DSA, the European regulation on digital services. It appears that Facebook judged nearly 19 million publications on the social network to be false or partially false between April and September 2024 in Europe. Among them, 0.9% of verifications were the subject of a complaint by Internet users, or around 170,000 publications. After further review, only 5,400 posts were rehabilitated. This represents an error rate of 0.02%… As for the publications deleted for violating the platforms’ regulations, there were 73.7 million, of which only 2 million were judged to be erroneous. This represents an error rate of 2.7%.

The Meta boss also said that “the fact-checkers were too politically biased and destroyed trust, much more than they strengthened it”. Although it is impossible to verify his first statement, several studies have nevertheless shown that fact-checking does have a positive effect. It notably made it possible to reduce the consultation of false and misleading information sites, and was very appreciated by users.

End of fact-checking: the door open to disinformation

To replace the fact-checking program, Meta wants to set up a system similar to the famous community notes found on X (ex Twitter). “We’ve seen this approach work on for other users”explained Mark Zuckerberg.

The firm wants to be reassuring. “Just like on Different points of view influence the ratings displayed in our apps, and we are working on the right way to share this information.”she assured. This new system will be gradually introduced over the next two months in the United States. American users of Facebook, Instagram and Threads can register today to be among the first contributors when this program becomes available.

However, the community rating system is quite controversial, because it requires a subsequent verification to know if the rating is true. It is very easy to organize a fake news raid… However, it is not useless since, according to researchers, the ratings make it possible to reduce “around 20% of the spread of disinformation” on X. But they are not enough on their own. Many content that fact-checking journalists find false or misleading does not receive any rating from the community.

Moderation policy: a dangerous change that incites hatred

In addition to this new community rating system, Meta will implement other changes “to return to [ses] roots”. In order to “restore” freedom of expression on its platforms, the company will make other changes to the moderation policy of its platforms. According to her, the automated systems used to search for violations of these policies have “resulted in too many errors and too much censored content that should not have been “. If it will continue to use them for illegal and serious violations, such as terrorism, sexual exploitation of children and drugs, it will however rely on “the reporting of a problem by someone before taking any action” For “less serious violations”.

Additionally, Meta will now allow speech regarding topics like immigration, sexual identity and gender, “which are the subject of frequent political discourse and debate”. She hears like this “to put an end to the drift which has made [ses] rules too restrictive and too likely to be applied excessively”. For example, social networks now allow “allegations of mental illness or abnormality based on sex or sexual orientation, taking into account political and religious discourse on transgenderism and homosexuality”. In short, it is allowed to accuse transgender or homosexual people of being mentally ill. Suffice to say that this raises serious concerns among defenders of LGBTQ+ rights and women’s rights.

End of fact-checking: a primarily political decision

Meta’s shift in the fight against disinformation is not new. Already last April, the company caused controversy by announcing the end of CrowdTangle, software considered essential for spotting and analyzing disinformation on Facebook and Instagram (see our article). During previous elections, however, it had made it possible to monitor in real time the spread of conspiracy theories, incitements to violence or manipulation campaigns led from abroad.

But these modifications are part of a particular political context today, where Mark Zuckerberg is increasing his appeals to Donald Trump, a great critic of information verifiers and propagator of fake news, since the latter’s re-election. Mark Zuckerberg has also affirmed that the re-election of Donald Trump would be the sign of a cultural change in the United States, driven by a desire to re-establish freedom of expression. He therefore adopts the same discourse as Elon Musk, even though he had banned the politician from his social networks in 2021, before rehabilitating him. Another sign of collusion with the new president of the United States: a meeting in Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence, as well as the appointment of Republican Joel Kaplan and UFC boss Dana White, two important pro- Trump, within the management of Meta.

End of fact-checking: France and Europe very worried

For the moment, these changes will only concern the United States, fact-checkers will continue to exist in Europe. But the situation is very unstable. Among the regions of the world that he considers pro-Censorship, Mark Zuckerberg cited the European Union, because it would have more and more laws “institutionalizing censorship”. He clearly shows his desire to reverse this trend and intends “working with President Trump to oppose foreign governments going after American businesses for further censorship”. A barely disguised allegiance, which worries European authorities all the more given the accusations of interference by Elon Musk, close adviser to Donald Trump, in the elections in Germany.

In a press releaseFrance expressed its “worry” faced with this decision. The Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs deplores Meta’s decision “to question the usefulness of information verification (fact-checking) to limit the circulation of false information”. The Government intends to maintain its vigilance regarding compliance with the company’s obligations under the DSA, which “an integral part of the proper democratic functioning of the EU, and to protect our fellow citizens from foreign interference and manipulation of information.” “Freedom of expression, a fundamental right protected in France and in Europe, cannot be confused with a right to virality which would authorize the dissemination of inauthentic content affecting millions of users without filter or moderation”for his part affirmed the spokesperson for French diplomacy.

As for the European Commission, it has of course rejected Mark Zuckerberg’s claims that “Europe [adoptait] a growing number of laws institutionalizing censorship and making innovation difficult”. She recalls that the DSA does not require platforms to delete legal content, but to remove content that could be harmful, particularly for children and European democracies.