Mark Zuckerberg doesn’t want to get on the wrong side of Donald Trump, as evidenced by Meta’s decision to exit the fact-checking business on Facebook and Instagram. But is he swapping one business risk for another?
Disbanding the fact-checking programme, recommending more political content across social networks, appointing Trump supporter and Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) CEO Dana White to Meta’s board, replacing the centrist Nick Clegg with Republican Joel Kaplan as head of Meta’s global policy team, working “with President Trump to push back on governments around the world that are going after American companies and pushing to censor more” – it’s clear Zuckerberg sees which way the political winds are blowing in America.
Still, cosying up to Trump and replacing fact-checking with a Community Notes model – the system used on Elon Musk’s X, with users adding comments to potentially false posts – brings its own risks. Meta says it has “seen this approach work on X”, but advertisers might disagree. Concerns over content moderation resulted in advertisers fleeing X.
In September, Fidelity estimated the platform’s value has collapsed almost 80 per cent since Musk’s 2022 takeover.
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However, Meta investors aren’t fretting, with shares tracking broader indices following the announcement. Investors seemingly agree with advertising analyst Brian Wieser, who told financial magazine Barron’s that brands will just have to “suck it up,” or face the alternative of congressional scrutiny from hostile Republicans.
Of course, a content free-for-all could alienate users, and Zuckerberg may think again in such an instance. For now, however, the path of least resistance appears to be embracing a more politically charged environment.
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