Meta is to shut down its third-party fact-checking programme, moving to the so-called community notes model favoured by rival platform X, and lift restrictions it had previously imposed on some topics on its platform.
The company said it would begin implementing the new programme in the US over the next few months. Under the new rules, users of Facebook, Instagram and Threads will be able to flag posts that are potentially misleading and need more context. These responses will require agreement between people with a range of perspectives to help prevent biased ratings, Meta said.
The announcement came shortly after conservative Joel Kaplan was named as Meta’s new head of global policy, replacing former liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg. The move also comes a day after the company named three new directors to its board, including Dana White, UFC chief executive and a close friend of US President-elect Donald Trump.
“Meta’s platforms are built to be places where people can express themselves freely,” Mr Kaplan said in a blog post. “That can be messy. On platforms where billions of people can have a voice, all the good, bad and ugly is on display. But that’s free expression.”
Mr Kaplan said the “increasingly complex systems” created to manage content on the social media company’s platforms had been developed partly in response to societal and political pressure to moderate content. “This approach has gone too far,” he said. “Too much harmless content gets censored, too many people find themselves wrongly locked up in ‘Facebook jail’, and we are often too slow to respond when they do.”
In a video statement, Meta chief executive Mark Zuckerberg said the company’s current fact-checking system had “too many mistakes and too much censorship”.
“It’s time to get back to our roots around free expression,” he said.
Meta also plans to loosen restrictions on discussion around immigration, gender identity and gender. “We want to undo the mission creep that has made our rules too restrictive and too prone to over-enforcement,” Mr Kaplan wrote. “It’s not right that things can be said on TV or the floor of Congress, but not on our platforms.”
The company said it would focus its efforts on illegal and high-severity violations, and take a more personalised approach to political content, allowing people who want to see more of it in their feeds to do so.
It also plans to publish more information on moderation mistakes, where content was removed in error. Meta said it believe 10 to 20 per cent of the actions it took last month could have been made in error.
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