| Li Zhou is a politics reporter at Vox where she covers Congress and elections. |
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| Li Zhou is a politics reporter at Vox where she covers Congress and elections. |
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Meta's MAGA-friendly fact-checking announcement, explained |
David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images |
With less than two weeks before the new Trump administration takes office, Meta chief Mark Zuckerberg announced a sweeping set of policy changes that will do away with fact-checkers on the company's platforms and reduce restrictions on the posts its users can share. Zuckerberg said the changes are meant to address political "bias" and curtail "censorship" — echoing arguments that President-elect Donald Trump and his supporters have long made about the platform. In lieu of fact-checkers, Facebook will employ a "Community Notes" model like the one used on X. As it operates on X, Community Notes allows users to add context and corrections to other people's posts, though studies show it can be slower and cover different subjects than professional fact-checking. Zuckerberg also said that the site would relax its policies for moderating posts and allow more content on issues including "immigration and gender" instead of taking them down. (According to a Wired review, some of these changes appear to have already gone into effect.) For users interested in seeing more political content, Zuckerberg noted that Meta plans to reintroduce more of these posts into people's feeds as well. In a five-minute video announcing the changes, Zuckerberg said the fact-checkers Facebook has worked with were "too politically biased" and had harmed user trust, and jabbed at the Biden administration for the "censorship" it's allegedly employed against Meta. (Zuckerberg didn't specify what he meant by that claim, though tech companies have previously fielded requests from the Biden administration about removing posts related to Covid-19 misinformation and election fraud.) Broadly, Meta's announcement signals a willingness among tech companies to cater to Trump as they seek to preserve their business prospects and avoid political retaliation from a frequent, strident critic. Its shifts in content moderation also have serious implications for the types of posts and misinformation that can spread on its platforms, which include Facebook, Instagram, and Threads. Meta's recent changes coincide with other moves Zuckerberg has made in an apparent attempt to get into Trump's good graces, including a personal visit to Mar-a-Lago and the appointment of Dana White, the CEO of Ultimate Fighting Championship and a Trump ally, to Meta's board of directors. "I suspect we will see a rise in false and misleading information around a number of topics, as there will be an incentive for those who want to spread that kind of content," Claire Wardle, an associate professor in communication at Cornell University, told Vox. |
Silicon Valley is bending the knee — with troubling consequences |
As Vox's Nicole Narea previously reported, Zuckerberg is far from the only tech CEO to try to build a friendlier relationship with Trump as his second term approaches. A number of others, including Amazon's Jeff Bezos — who killed a Washington Post editorial endorsement of Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris — have done the same.
Many of these efforts are driven by the goal of maintaining a friendlier regulatory climate, Narea reports, whether that's less scrutiny of antitrust or more consideration for government contracts.
Efforts by businesses to cultivate ties across administrations are commonplace. But Zuckerberg's and Bezos's moves have raised additional concerns, given the impact they have on what millions of people read and, in Zuckerberg's case, post. Zuckerberg's moves could shape the type of content that proliferates on Facebook, Instagram, and Threads, enabling misinformation to thrive unchecked. Not only will Facebook remove fact-checkers, but by dialing back moderation on topics like immigration and gender identity, which have already been the subject of rampant right-wing conspiracy theories, it could exacerbate an existing mis- and disinformation problem. X, formerly known as Twitter, has also rolled back its content moderation since Trump ally and Tesla CEO Elon Musk took over the site in late 2022. Since then, Musk elevated Community Notes as a way to crowd-source fact-checks. |
Community Notes has been a mixed bag since it was implemented, says Erik Nisbet, a professor of policy analysis and communications at Northwestern University. Researchers have found that users are likely to trust context offered via Community Notes more than a basic flag from a fact-checker, for example. But Community Notes are often slower than a professional fact-checker, meaning a false post could go viral before it gets checked. Additionally, Community Notes relies on the expertise and interest of the site's users, whereas professional fact-checkers can offer expertise quickly on a wider range of key topics. The changes in content moderation at X since Musk's takeover could foreshadow similar results at Meta. A USC study of English-language posts on X from January 2022 to June 2023 found that hate speech had increased 50 percent on the site in that time, with use of transphobic slurs increasing 260 percent. Musk fired a number of content moderators when he took over in 2022 and began revamping the platform's approach, including lifting suspensions for previously banned accounts. "Mark Zuckerberg argues that his role model for this change is Elon Musk and what he did on Twitter. So we can look at Twitter for answers, right? And if we do, we see chaos," says Yotam Ophir, a University of Buffalo communications professor who studies misinformation. The potential spread of more misinformation and hateful content on Meta's platforms is concerning, Nisbet told Vox, and could have significant effects on the quality of US democracy. Access to accurate information and the ability to hold political leaders accountable is a crucial differentiator for democratic states, he said, and as falsehoods are allowed to proliferate and spread, it weakens people's access to trustworthy information and their ability to confront their political leaders. Multiple recent events have illustrated the acute impact such misinformation can have. In September, Trump amplified a lie about Haitian immigrants eating pets in Springfield, Ohio, which had begun on Facebook. That lie went on to fuel property damage and threats against Haitian people in the city. Trump's lies about FEMA aid workers in North Carolina following Hurricane Helene's devastation also spread on social media, spurring distrust of the agency and even threats of violence toward government workers. Without strong guardrails at Facebook, Instagram, and Threads, such misinformation could spread further and have even more dangerous consequences. |
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| MAGA is fighting over immigration. Vox's Andrew Prokop tells us what happened, and the Wall Street Journal's Tim Higgins explains why it isn't the first time Elon Musk has split the party — and won't be the last. |
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Chris Jackson/Getty Images |
Justin Trudeau's resignation, explained: After weeks of speculation, the Canadian prime minister announced that he'd be stepping down as the Liberal Party leader and will remain prime minister only until the party chooses a new leader. He suffered criticism following inflation after the pandemic, as well as on immigration and environmental policies.
Can Trump get "one big, beautiful bill?" Republicans are gearing up for President-elect Donald Trump's return to the White House and are planning to execute a legislative agenda touching on everything from taxes to immigration to fossil fuels. A process known as budget reconciliation would enable them to bypass filibuster rules, but it comes with caveats that could create a major roadblock to Trump's agenda. Maybe everyone should qualify for welfare benefits: While universal programs are often viewed as expensive since they're paid for with higher taxes, some experts say they are generally much easier and less expensive to administer. Social Security and Medicare work like this, and they're two of the most popular social programs in America. College athletes are regrouping in their fight for labor rights: Dartmouth University basketball players made history last March by voting to unionize, becoming the first successful union election by student athletes in US history. Now, the players have withdrawn their federal labor petition. The move was likely made in anticipation of President-elect Donald Trump's intention to fill two vacancies on the National Labor Relations Board. Have you seen Beast Games on Amazon Prime yet? The new game show is hosted by 26-year-old Jimmy Donaldson, the famed YouTuber known as "MrBeast." On the show, 1,000 people compete for $5 million, the largest prize in entertainment history, and partake in various challenges that pit contestants against each other. Our writer calls it "both sickening to watch and extremely compelling." |
Fire danger in Southern California: California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) has instructed state departments to place fire engines and additional support teams in areas that could be impacted by high winds in the coming days. Dry conditions are expected to exacerbate the risk. [ABC] First human bird flu death: A patient has died in Louisiana from a severe H5N1 infection. The news comes after 67 recorded cases in the US. [NBC] |
Frederic J. Brown/ AFP via Getty Images |
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"Imagine that the government tried to force Jeff Bezos, the Amazon billionaire and owner of the Washington Post, to sell that newspaper due to concerns that Bezos might order his paper to publish subversive content. No competent judge would uphold such a law, which obviously violates the First Amendment's free speech protections." |
That's Vox's Ian Milhiser on TikTok v. Garland, which the Supreme Court is scheduled to hear Friday. The case concerns a federal law that requires ByteDance, the Beijing-based company that owns TikTok, to sell the company due to US fears around possible spying or manipulation. You can read more about the question of national security when it comes to the First Amendment here. |
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Today's edition was produced and edited by senior editor Lavanya Ramanathan, with contributions from staff editor Melinda Fakuade. We'll see you tomorrow! |
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