Meta, the company that owns Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Threads, will no longer fact-check posts by the software’s employees for United States users. Instead, CEO Mark Zuckerberg claims that information policing will be left to individual posters and artificial intelligence (AI).
Fact-checking, a verification method for finding trustworthy news, has been a key element of online safety by allowing the public to access more reliable facts while curbing the production of false ones.
The National Institutes of Health found that many turn to social media sites as a source when searching for COVID related information.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, medical breakthroughs and home remedies to combat the virus were circulated widely on media platforms, creating a massive spread of misinformation.
Along with fact-checking, Meta will remove most post and word filters that detect offensive or illegal material published on the platform.
Zuckerberg claims that the lack of filters will emphasize freedom of speech, but acknowledges there is a risk for problematic posts circulating.
“The reality is that this is a trade-off. It means we’re going to catch less bad stuff, but we’ll also reduce the number of innocent people’s posts and accounts that we accidentally take down,” Zuckerberg said in a video posted to the platform Facebook Watch.
This move away from filtering language has many users concerned about the consequences of the shift.
“By abandoning fact-checking, Meta is opening the door to unchecked hateful disinformation about already targeted communities like Black, brown, immigrant, and trans people,” Nicole Sugerman, a specialist in countering online hate, said in an email to The Verge on Jan. 7.
Senior Nico Romero uses Instagram regularly and sees issues with a freer platform. “I have concerns about how people will blindly accept the information that appears on their feeds,” Romero said. “Filtering should be a leading factor in determining what you trust and maintaining trustworthy sources of information.”
Michael Spinrad, AP Microeconomics and AP U.S. Government and Politics teacher, sees several potential positives impacts from the change.
“I think this model is probably better for conversation. It’s probably healthier for a society such as ours that values first amendment and free speech rights,” Spinrad said. “In my opinion, [this] seems to stay out of the way a little more because otherwise you have fact-checkers imposing their views onto the conversation, and the fact-checkers know better than anyone else.
