This was a posted video by the chief himself on my FB feed this am:
“It’s time to get back to our roots around free expression. We’re replacing fact checkers with Community Notes, simplifying our policies and focusing on reducing mistakes. Looking forward to this next chapter.”
Taking a page out of elon’s book? Is this a shift to the right for meta? Is the media now going to be flooded with negative pieces on Zuck 24/7? Discuss.
I don’t know but I have always felt facebook was a swamp. It bothered me when it became for many people the only way they communicated things. Community event only posted on facebook?
I don’t necessarily blame him for moving with whichever way the political winds may blow. It’s probably smart business.
True, but the meta umbrella also contains Instagram, and together those two platforms make up a huge amount of the social media landscape worldwide and the way people communicate, the ads and content and news they see (well, unless you’re in Canada…).
I feel like with their reach, this type of shift in moderation approach is a pretty significant event.
ETA: just checked and Meta claims 3.3 billion people use one or more of their apps daily. That is incredible reach. Twitter has around 240 million daily users.
I blame him. This is rewarding trump’s behavior. Rewarding him will encourage him to go further and demand even more for obedience and in the long term that is bad for business.
Facebook is being investigated for antitrust claims, this is to get the next admin to drop it.
This is not about free speech, this is just about pleasing the next admin.
I think it is in large part in anticipation of the incoming Trump administration, but it’s also part of a larger trend that direction that’s been going on for years.
Back in 2019 Facebook said it would stop fact-checking political ads on the platform.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/17/business/zuckerberg-facebook-free-speech.html
And Meta has long been irritated by the EU’s more assertive regulatory posture on many issues, including this one, so I think today’s announcement perhaps isn’t as much of a sea change and it appears at first blush.
I’ve mentioned in various threads over the past few years that there is a guy in my town that I’m acquainted with (we have kids the same age) and he is huge conspiracy nut. The more crazy the conspiracy theory is the more likely he is to be shouting it from the rooftops. Over the years his posts on facebook are constantly being flagged as false, or pulled down. He has even been suspended on a couple occasions for some of his posts. He is very, very, very excited about FB dropping fact checkers, you’d think he just won the lottery.
I have a problem with any group that knowingly puts out false information on their platform. If they want to label these items as opinion, I’m ok their but allowing it to be stated as fact is a problem.
Zuck will do whatever he thinks is best for their bottom line. He will be carried whichever way his number-crunchers think the political winds are blowing in order to keep users. As chaparral says above, it could also be to get the gov off his back.
We don’t really have much insight into Zuck except he really likes making money.
Thought this thread was about his latest watch, literally.
He’s sporting a $900k, handmade Swiss watch. Maybe that should go in the watch thread.
Which is equivalent to someone with a net worth of 1 million dollars wearing a $45 dollar watch.
“fact-checkers have just been too politically biased”.
This is what struck me. One side has figured out that it isn’t in their best interest to be called out by facts.
I read that as “fact checkers have been too accurate, and one side of the political continuum lies a lot and hates being checked.”
So, you think Meta’s claim that fact checkers made too many mistakes and flagged content that shouldn’t have been, which had negative consequences for the person posting it, is a lie?
Seems like that would be fairly straightforward to find out.
Going to have to fact check that one ;).
Whatever he’s hoping to gain or avoid from the next administration with this move I don’t think you can fully discount the fact that he runs Meta and like everyone else he changes (I won’t say matures) as time goes on.
He’s 40 now. He started out as a left-leaning aspiring philanthropist who I imagine thought (once he’d grown out of its puerile origins) that facebook would be a force for good in the world. It’s not, and I imagine he has a sizeable amount of internal conflict about that. I can imagine that it may seem to him that the more he’s tried to mold the meta platforms into benign businesses (if not a force for good), the more he’s been hauled in front of congressional committees, attacked by European regulators and generally assigned more blame for what ails us than he thinks he’s due.
I on the other hand think it’s all earned and he should take his knocks. But my point is, whatever political expediency he sees in this move, I imagine he also feels a lot of relief in just “giving up.” “They think I’m a pasty malevolent weirdo and my businesses are a cancer on society? Well then f_ck it, its MMA, community notes and making as much money as I can from here on out. I tried, no-one loved me, this is on them.”
I agree. Z has made a power, control, and profit grab, and wrapped it up in a 1A disguise. I have an Igram acct., but have never done anything on it. Probably sht-can it today. Then gonna take a stroll through Meta 1 more x, and hit delete on that too this afternoon. I’ll admit to being entertained by it, but decision-making news and information is something I get elsewhere.
I agree. However I think there’s something to be said about the choice he faces. Censor too much and he gets in trouble. Censor too little and he gets in trouble. Where’s the line? How do you continually censor the insane amount of speech that happens on his platform? They have admitted to having issues with over censorship, and unfairly punishing people over it.
It seems the risk to Meta is greater with over censorship. Under censorship is annoying, but i don’t know how you flag and punish posters of information in real time when often the truth isnt fully known and more complex than it may seem on the surface. Should my cell service provider be obligated to screen my text messages and phone calls for misinformation too?
Legacy media have their own substantial issue with bias, but they seem to get a free pass on this.