What is going on with Meta?
Meta’s decision to end fact-checking to prioritise “free speech” has prompted alarm among social media experts, as well as questions about the ethics of using its platforms.
The company’s billionaire founder, Mark Zuckerberg, on Tuesday announced that the platforms’ fact-checking programme would be replaced with X-style “community notes”, a feature that allows users to add context to posts. More political content will be pushed on to Meta’s platforms – which include Instagram, Facebook and Threads – while certain restrictions will be removed for subjects including immigration and gender.
Does Meta’s announcement affect me?
The decision affects just the US for now, but could expand to other jurisdictions.
PAccording to Prof Axel Bruns from the Queensland University of Technology’s digital media centre, the “problematic” decision is likely an attempt to “curry favour” with the incoming Trump administration. “This is a real problem for everyone who’s using Meta platforms, because this really opens the door to more and more misunderstanding circulating.”
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When it comes to Instagram, Bruns says it will be interesting to see if the platform changes – including if users start to see more “overtly political content” in their feeds.
The decision may affect people who follow a lot of US-based sources, he says.
Should I quit the platforms?
Experts say it is a matter of personal choice. “In a perfect world, people who were unhappy with Meta’s decision would walk away from Instagram,” says Prof Jeannie Paterson, director of the University of Melbourne’s Centre for AI and Digital Ethics. “But in the real world that’s a lot harder to do.”
[ Zuckerberg shifts to Trump, but will he pay a price?Opens in new window ]
If I want to leave, what are the alternatives?
The irony is that there are very few alternatives. Prof Paterson says Twitter was a different story – noting that many people left the platform after Elon Musk bought it, renamed it X, and then became “more extreme in his views”.
But with Instagram, for example, there’s “no easy alternative” – TikTok “has its own issues” and other platforms with similar reach just aren’t there.
What about other changes?
In addition to ending its fact-checking programme, Meta is also changing its hateful conduct policy, which will dismantle protections for LGBTQ+ people, immigrants and other marginalised people.
“This, in combination with tedious targeted advertising and rampant AI slop, is set to make these platforms not just unsafe, but unbearable,” says Samantha Floreani, a Melbourne-based digital rights activist.
“On one level, we need robust domestic tech regulation and more diversity of platforms available to us. But when it comes to the bigger picture, what we really need is to disentangle online spaces from the incentives of a ruthless growth-at-any-cost ideology.” – Guardian