After discontinuing fact-checking in the US, the companies behind Facebook and Instagram have also discontinued their systems to limit the spread of fake news.
Last week, Meta announced it would no longer work with fact-checkers in the US. It said their work was often biased, although Meta has never formally complained about this in recent years. Now, it is taking things further by adjusting its internal systems.
According to sources Platformer spoke to and an internal document it reviewed, Meta has stopped an internal system that is supposed to stop or limit fake news. As far as we know, that only happens in the US.
That system, built over the past few years, was supposed to detect posts that were highly likely to be false, often pending a fact check that could take days. It used machine learning to assess content, for example, if it was shared by a page that regularly spreads fake news or if users questioned its authenticity in the comments.
This allowed Meta to limit the visibility of specific posts before they were judged substantively or without human moderators. The posts were never deleted, but it limited the chance that they would go viral and that Meta would give them more visibility through its algorithm.
This happened regularly during the run-up to the American elections in 2016 when Donald Trump was first elected. In the aftermath, it became clear that there were many attempts at manipulation through false messages. Facebook itself often gave these messages extra visibility. This resulted in much criticism for the company, after which it decided to focus more strongly on election manipulation and combating harmful content and untruths.
The return of Donald Trump is now causing the company to make a 180-degree turn. Suddenly, according to Meta, fact-checkers are biased and responsible for censorship. Remarkably, this is only the case in the US because they continue to work outside of that. Removing or making posts less visible is also something that Meta decides, not fact-checkers. In that respect, Meta mainly criticizes its policy, which it is now trying to shift onto others.
LGBTQ bashing is welcome again
The same week, the company clarified that it would stop DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion) measures there. This means that the company will take less account of diversity in recruitment, among other things. Verbal attacks against the LGBTQI community are also no longer a violation of the platform.
It is also striking that Meta waves the free speech flag very one-sidedly. You are allowed to proclaim factual nonsense; you are allowed to spread harmful things. At the same time, a bare female breast is still too dangerous for the American company. Cartoonist Lectrr, who draws for Data News, also saw two cartoons removed last week. This is probably due to a smear campaign against him, which caused the posts to be reported en masse. Meta mainly intervenes or does not intervene, depending on what suits her politically.