Facebook, Instagram, and Threads could become as unhinged as X, as Meta moves to cut back on misinformation checking.
If it seems as if social media is undergoing a serious change, and politics may be the reason why. As the US government is set to undergo its own change with the shift from a Democratic to a Republican president, one of the biggest players in social media is changing its rules to account for and largely accommodate the new president.
Simply put, Meta is going all in for what it claims is free speech and free expression, as it looks to curb fact checking and let users say what they want.
“It’s time to get back to our roots on free expression,” said Mark Zuckerberg, Owner and Founder of Meta and Facebook in a video posted to the news about the matter.
Previously, Meta had run partnerships for fact-checking, before changing it up and using algorithms and other systems to work out whether content was misinformation.
However, according to Zuckerberg, these systems don’t always work.
“[So] we built a lot of complex systems to moderate content. But the problem with complex systems is they make mistakes. Even if they accidentally censor just one percent of posts, that’s millions of people,” he said.
“And we’ve reached a point where it’s just too many mistakes and too much censorship.”
Some of those reasons include reportedly noting that some fact-checkers had their own biases, while others are more automatic, even though fact-checking has been reported to work.
To deal with this, Facebook, Instagram, and Threads are rolling back its fact checking programs, and instead moving to a platform more like that of what Twitter and X uses: community notes, whereby regular people will be entrusted with fact-checking, and leaving notes for others as a form of checking.
The solution will see US members of Meta properties initially kick in over the coming months, and will even see Facebook get rid of fact-checking controls with what the company says is a “much less obtrusive label indicating that there is additional information for those who want to see it”.
With fact-checking going away from at least one side of social, if a post has misinformation, it may be down to the user viewing it to work that out.
In short, it’s potentially back to the Wild West of social media.
The cost of misinformation
While Meta talks of free speech, the cost of misinformation and fact checking could be one reason why Meta is doing away with the program. And not just because of how much it costs to fact check, but the potential for being out of favour with government and advertisers.
As a new government rolls into power in the US, particularly one with a more cavalier approach to saying what it wants, the cost of having a fact-checking program could come down to losing out on ad dollars, as well as being granted more access to the government.
Meta hasn’t cited these as reasons, and they are purely speculation. However, with misinformation checking a crucial part of Meta’s own ad rules program, scaling this back could see the company potentially make more money later on down the track.
What does this mean for Australian users?
In Australia, the changes to Meta’s rules on combatting misinformation may not have an immediate result, if any.
While Meta is clearly looking to provide more of a platform in line with the next US president (Trump) and what is working on Twitter and X, Australia has different rules regarding misinformation than the United States, and Meta would be required to comply with Australian legislation in order to run its platform locally.
As such, the Australian government’s plan to combat misinformation as part of the Communications Legislation Amendment (Combatting Misinformation and Disinformation) Bill 2024 would still force Meta to comply with misinformation standards, and likely empower ACMA with the authority to have certain pieces of misinformation taken down.
Meta’s own stance on the matter has noted that its third-party fact-checking system is ending in the US first, suggesting the changes won’t affect Australians initially.
However, it’s entirely possible that could change.
While the government’s rules make it clear that organisations have to work to remove deliberate misinformation, we could also eventually see a return to the Facebook of old that removed access to Australian news organisations following a disagreement with the government.
For Australians, it’s very much a case of wait and see, or even looking elsewhere. For many, Bluesky has popped up as a potential place to go to since X became what it has become in the past year, and with Facebook set to scale back fact-checking, the same could happen there, too.
Right now, however, it appears local Facebook is safe, at least for the moment. As to how long it stays that way is anyone’s guess.
