Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg shrugged off criticism that his new policy that does away with third-party fact-checking and censorship will alienate users — insisting that anyone who quits company platforms Facebook, Instagram and Threads would be “virtue signaling.”
Zuckerberg responded to a post on Threads that criticized him for Tuesday’s decision, with many calling him a “coward” and a “liar” who was “kissing the ring” of President-elect Donald Trump.
The Meta boss was defiant in downplaying the possibility of a mass exodus of users.
“Some people may leave our platforms for virtue signaling, but I think the vast majority and many new users will find that these changes make the products better,” Zuckerberg wrote.
Mary-Frances Makichen, a Threads user who has 253 followers, lamented that Meta and Zuckerberg “are counting on the fact that its too hard for people to leave Threads and IG.”
“Meta has us in a chokehold. They make money off our presence in order to continue to be in business and yet its too difficult for people to leave,” Makichen wrote.
“This is not a great cycle. Meta is a system based on a negative feedback loop that just keeps reinforcing itself.”
Zuckerberg replied to the post, writing: “No — I’m counting on these changes actually making our platforms better.”
The Meta chief defended his decision to transition to a “Community Notes”-style format of fact-checking similar to that used on X, the social media platform run by owner Elon Musk.
Zuckerberg predicted that Community Notes “will be more effective than fact-checkers, reducing the number of people whose accounts get mistakenly banned is good, people want to be able to discuss civic topics and make arguments that are in the mainstream of political discourse, etc.”
Zuckerberg’s critics were not convinced.
“You bowed down to [President-elect Donald] Trump, because you are afraid of what might happen if you dare to stand up to him,” one Threads user wrote.
Zuckerberg has made efforts to curry favor with Trump in recent weeks. His company donated $1 million to Trump’s inaugural fund and he recently trekked down to Mar-a-Lago to meet the president-elect for dinner — during which he gifted him a pair of Ray-Ban smart glasses.
In his Tuesday announcement, Zuckerberg had some pointed criticisms of “legacy media” that “wrote nonstop about how misinformation was a threat to democracy.”
We tried in good faith to address those concerns without becoming the arbiters of truth, Zuckerberg said.
He admitted that the third-party fact-checkers relied on by Facebook have been too politically biased and have destroyed more trust than they created.
Facebook will also do away with restrictions on topics like immigration and gender that are just out of touch with mainstream discourse, Zuckerberg said.
What started as a movement to be more inclusive has increasingly been used to shut down opinions and shut out people with different ideas, he said, adding: Its gone too far.
Zuckerberg also announced that Meta will move our content moderation teams out of California and relocate them to Texas.
As we work to promote free expression, I think that will help build trust to do this work in places where theres less concern about the bias of our team, the Meta boss said.
Meta employees blasted the decision as well as the move to add Ultimate Fighting Championship head Dana White to the board of directors, according to a report.
Zuckerberg reportedly decided to do away with censorship mechanisms at Meta after a seemingly innocuous photo that he posted on Facebook in November 2023 about the surgery that was performed on his left anterior cruciate ligament failed to go viral, the Wall Street Journal reported.
When Zuckerberg followed up as to why the post wasn’t as widely shared as he had hoped, he learned that software engineers adjusted the algorithm to limit the spread of health-related content — particularly in light of the claims made about the coronavirus vaccine, according to the Journal.