Meta’s decision to scrap fact-check system and adopt Musk-style policy is big ‘win’ for free speech: Experts

Meta’s decision to lift content restrictions and replace its fact-checking program with a system like X’s Community Notes is being hailed as a massive “win” for free speech by experts.

While some critics remain skeptical that the reforms at Meta will lead to significant change, MRC Free Speech America Vice President Dan Schneider told Fox News Digital that First Amendment advocates should take the news as a victory.

“The changes (Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg) has implemented are systemic, long-term, including replacing some of the most radical people in Silicon Valley with people like Joel Kaplan and Kevin Martin at number two and number three in the company.” Schneider said. “Changing the algorithms. These are huge wins.”

UCLA Chief Data & Artificial Intelligence (AI) Officer Chris Mattmann, speaking to Fox News Digital, said Zuckerberg should be “applauded” and predicted it would lead to a greater sense of freedom on Meta platforms, which include Facebook, Instagram and Thread.

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Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced Tuesday that his company would adopt a new fact-checking system similar to the Community Notes on Elon Musk’s X. (Chris Unger/Zuffa LLC/Jonathan Raa/NurPhoto/Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)

“Without Elon (Musk) buying Twitter, renaming it X and immediately firing all the Trust & Safety people and all those doing this kind of ‘independent fact-checking’ — without it and probably with (Donald) Trump’s election (this may not have happened),” he said.

But not everyone was thrilled with the news. Fact-checking organizations, liberal media pundits and other critics have derided claims of political bias and suggested that Meta had abandoned its responsibility for content moderation. The New York Times even highlighted fact-checkers balking at Meta’s claim.

“Trust Signals: Brand Building in a Post-Truth World,” author Scott Baradell likened Meta’s decision to a referee being pulled off the field and hoped the players would still play fair. He told Fox News Digital that it “raises serious questions about whether Big Tech is backing away from its responsibility to balance free speech with the need for public trust in the digital age.”

“Mark Zuckerberg’s words are high-minded — and he’s certainly right that there have been problems with bias in third-party fact-checking — but let’s be honest: he’s taking the path of least resistance in the wake of a Trump victory,” he continued.

Meta’s third-party fact-checking program was launched after the 2016 election and had been used to “manage content” and misinformation on its platforms, largely due to “political pressure,” executives said, but admitted the system has also “come a long way.”

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Social media apps on an iPhone’s home screen (Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson)

Since then, the process has drawn the ire of conservatives, who have accused the platform of politically driven censorship while pointing to multiple examples of content being silenced. That includes the bombshell New York Post reporting on Hunter Biden’s laptop, as well as certain content about COVID-19, the latter of which Zuckerberg admitted the Biden White House pressured him to do and was a mistake.

“We went to independent third-party fact-checkers,” Meta’s head of global affairs, Joel Kaplan, told Fox News Digital in an interview Tuesday morning. “It’s become clear that there’s too much political bias in what they choose to fact-check because they’re basically fact-checking whatever they see on the platform.”

Mattmann, who previously served as CTO of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), said that while there is some credence to allegations of left-wing bias and inaccuracies among Meta fact-checkers, his other takeaway was Zuckerberg’s decision to no longer de-prioritize certain content, that have been marked or graded.

Kaplan told Fox News Digital that Meta would change some of its own content moderation rules, particularly those it feels are “too restrictive and don’t allow enough discourse around sensitive topics like immigration, trans issues and gender.”

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Meta platforms are shown on a smartphone screen with the Meta logo in the background in Chania, Greece on August 9, 2024. (Nikolas Kokovlis/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

Kaplan also revealed that Meta currently uses automated systems that he said make “too many mistakes” and remove content “that doesn’t even violate our standards.”

HeraldPR CEO and President Juda S. Engelmayer told Fox News Digital that the problem with Meta and other major tech platforms, whether ongoing or resolved, was fact-checkers’ coordination with platforms to engage in censorship, sometimes based on personal opinions and ideological agenda.

“For example, the debate over whether the coronavirus originated in a laboratory in China should never have been censored simply because some considered it offensive or politically sensitive,” she said.

“Determining whether the virus was fatal or whether vaccines and masks were necessary involves scientific debate and evolving data. Silencing opposing or supportive views based on a fact-checker’s perception of what is best for the public undermines free discourse,” continued Engelmayer.

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The New York Times sparked controversy when it featured fact-checkers protesting comments made by Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg. (New York Times building photo courtesy of CAMERA | Zuckerberg photo by Kent Nishimura)

Mattmann said that as companies like Meta move to a more “open systems mentality” and “shine a light” on their internal processes, the platforms will improve. Previously, Meta would suppress the range of content rated poorly by fact checkers or those that contained specific keywords.

By moving toward an approach similar to Community Notes, Mattmann suggested that platform users will see more content, regardless of the “context” offered by fact-checkers, and have a greater sense of why review decisions were made.

The key contrast, Mattmann emphasized, is that Community Notes is a “globally transparent, transparent” approach, where readers can see some of the discussion about why a piece was flagged and who flagged it.

“The difference between (independent fact-checking organizations) and community notes is that you can go through their profile. The people who have the community notes, like you, can look at the provenance and say, OK, this was edited by these people, and you can go look at those on X, you know and look it up. So it’s really the open source mentality around it and I think that ultimately wins the day.

Still, Mattmann said Meta can improve on X’s approach by bringing even more transparency to users.

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