Why Zuckerberg killed fact checking as he kept meeting with Trump

Mark Zuckerberg, who often bends with the political spirit, is getting out of the fact-checking business.

And this is part of the Meta CEO’s broader effort to ingratiate himself with Donald Trump after a long and testy relationship.

After the previous complaint, Zuck made a big show of announcing that Facebook would hire fact-checkers to combat misinformation on the world-famous site. That was a clear sign that Facebook is becoming a journalistic organization rather than a poster board for user opinions (and dog pictures).

But it didn’t work. In fact, it has led to the suppression of information and further research. Why should anyone believe a bunch of anonymous fact-checkers working for one of the biggest tech giants?

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Now Zuckerberg is pulling the plug, announcing his decision in a video to emphasize its massive nature:

“The problem with complex systems is that they make mistakes. Even if they accidentally check only 1% of the posts. That’s millions of people. And we’ve reached a point where there are too many mistakes and too many checks. The recent election also sounds like a tipping point for a culture towards prioritizing speech.”

Let me jump in here. Zuckerberg flatly admits, with that line about “the point of cultural appropriation,” that he’s following conventional wisdom—and, of course, the biggest point is Trump’s second-term election. And skeptics portray this as bowing down to the president-elect and his team.

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So we’re going to go back to our roots and focus on reducing mistakes, simplifying our policies, and restoring free speech on our platforms…

We will “remove fact-checking” and replace it with public notes, which are already used in X. “After Trump was first elected in 2016, the popular media wrote nonstop about how misinformation was a threat to democracy.

“We have sincerely tried to address these concerns without being fact-checkers. But fact-checkers have become too politically biased and have destroyed more trust than they have created, especially in the US.”

SpaceX and Tesla founder Elon Musk speaks at a town hall with Republican US Senate candidate Dave McCormick at the Roxain Theater on October 20, 2024 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. (Michael Swensen/Getty Images)

It was Zuckerberg, along with previous executives at Twitter, who blocked Trump after the Capitol chaos. This has led to many Trumpian attacks on Facebook, and the president-elect told me that he has changed his position on blocking TikTok because it will help Facebook, which he considers a huge risk.

Trump said last summer that Zuckerberg was plotting against him in 2020 and that he would “spend the rest of his life in prison” if he did it again.

The president-elect boiled it down in the mail: “ZUCKERBUCKS, YOU CAN DO IT!”

Here’s more from Z: “We’re going to simplify our content policies and remove a lot of restrictions on topics like immigration and gender that have recently fallen out of touch with mainstream discourse. What started out as a very inclusive organization has been used to shut down ideas and shut out people with different and extreme views.

Of course it is. And I agree with that. In 2020, social networks, led by Twitter, suppressed the New York Post story on Hunter Biden’s laptop, dismissing it as Russian disinformation, although a year and a half later the media suddenly reported that the laptop report was accurate.

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Let’s face it: People like Zuckerberg and Elon Musk (now engaged in a war of words with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer over the alleged gang-rape of young girls while Starmer was chief prosecutor) have a lot of power. They are the new gatekeepers. With so-called legacy media less important—as we see with the exodus of many talented people from Jeff Bezos’ Washington Post and the recent rise of podcasts—they dominate much of the public conversation. And yes, private companies can do what they want.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer listens to a speech by British Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves at the Labor Party Conference in Liverpool, England, Monday, Sept. 23, 2024. (AP Photo/Jon Super)

At yesterday’s marathon news conference, a reporter asked Trump about Zuckerberg: “Do you think he’s responding directly to the threats you’ve made to him in the past with promises?”

“Maybe. Yeah, maybe,” Trump said, twisting the knife a little.

Meanwhile, as he made the obligatory trip to Mar-a-Lago for dinner, the CEO took several steps to join forces with the new management. And it doesn’t hurt that Meta is kicking millions of dollars into the Trump establishment.

Zuck appointed prominent Republican lawyer Joel Kaplan as head of global affairs, replacing the former British Deputy Prime Minister. On “Fox & Friends” yesterday, Kaplan said:

“We’ve got a real opportunity now. We have a new administration and a new president coming in who are great defenders of free speech, and that makes a difference. Another thing we’ve experienced is that if you have free speech. The US president, the administration pushing for vetting, it just makes it open season for other governments. around the world who don’t even have the protection of the First Amendment to really put pressure on US companies President Trump to go ahead with something like that around the world.”

We will work with President Trump. Did I get it?

In addition, Zuckerberg added Dana White, the chief executive of the United Fighting Championship, to Meta’s board. White is a longtime Trump ally, so MAGA now has a voice within the company.

In other words, find a plan.

Footnote: In his press conference, where Trump appeared angry about the recent battles in the courts and the plans to convict him, the incoming president said – or “did not rule,” in the language of the journalist – “military force” against his two latest goals.

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“Well, we need Greenland for national security purposes,” he said. And Americans lost many lives in building the Panama Canal. “You might have to do something.”

He will not use military force against anyone. But his answer stirs the pot, as he knows it will.