The Scoop: Meta removes fact-checkers ahead of Trump’s return

Meta will end its third-party fact-checking to “restore free expression” on its social platforms.

In the coming months, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram and Threads will introduce a “Community Notes” system similar to what X uses.

“We’ve reached a point where it’s just too many mistakes, and too much censorship,” Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said Tuesday.

Zuckerberg described the recent elections as a “cultural tipping point.” He went on to criticize third-party fact-checkers, calling them “politically biased” as a whole and doing harm to public trust.

The changes are the latest effort by Meta to make peace with President-elect Donald Trump before he returns to the White House. Meta named Republican insider Joel Kaplan as the head of its global policy team and Facebook added UFC CEO Dana White, a Trump ally, to its board.

“Honestly, I think they’ve come a long way — Meta, Facebook, I think they’ve come a long way,” Trump said on Tuesday.

While Trump may be happy, many social media experts and watchdogs aren’t.

“Meta’s already having a hard time dealing with bad content as it is, and it’s going to get even worse,” Valerie Wirtschafter, a Brookings Institution fellow, told Time.

Why it matters: Meta’s sudden reversal on fact-checking signals a precarious time ahead for brands on social media. The removal of these factual safeguards will likely pose risks to maintaining brand integrity.

The changes may mark a return to the situation in 2016 when Facebook struggled with misinformation and disinformation related to the presidential election. That could also put brands at risk, with no outside source to step in and say when a company is being dragged through the mud.

Putting fact-checking in the hands of users makes truth a group activity – and one where it’s often difficult to find consensus. Brands may find themselves having to decide when to step in more often themselves – and when to stay silent.

Beyond the loosening of content moderation, Meta is changing rules about what users can post. There are plans to remove some restrictions on posting about certain topics, such as immigration and the LGBTQ+ community, deemed “out of touch with mainstream discourse,” according to Zuckerberg.

The new policy allows users to share “allegations of mental illness or abnormality based on gender or sexual orientation, given political and religious discourse about transgenderism and homosexuality.”

It’s clear that Meta is governed by whichever way the political and cultural winds seem to blow. When it though it could profit by banning Trump or moderating hate speech, it did so. When that changed, so did the policy. It’s capitalism, pure and simple.

The Wall Street Journal reported that several major ad buyers said they won’t end up cutting spending on Meta in the short term as its ads offer a return on investment that’s “too good to pass up.” Meta also benefits from having a client roster with many small businesses that don’t tend to care as much about national controversies as major brands, per the report.

But that could change if users don’t agree with the policy updates. In recent months we’ve seen people pivot from X in favor of platforms like upstart Bluesky. It’s possible the policy adjustments and Zuckerberg’s cozying up with Trump could alienate some users. One IG user wrote that they were likely leaving IG because “its CEO lost any semblance of a moral compass.”

These changes aren’t going to take place overnight, but social teams should brace for the impact now.

Above all, double down on social listening. Ensure you know when the first whispers of a problem appear on Meta platforms so you can decide whether or not to step in with your own community note.

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Casey Weldon is a reporter for PR Daily. Follow him on LinkedIn.