Meta’s fact-checking partners on Tuesday pushed back against Mark Zuckerberg’s suggestion that their work amounts to censorship.
In the social media giant’s announcement Decision to end fact-finding Zuckerberg said the move would “dramatically reduce the amount of censorship on our platforms” on Facebook, Instagram and other meta-platforms in the United States. In a Facebook post explaining Meta’s move to a community-driven moderation approach, Joel Kaplan, Meta’s chief international affairs officer, also said, “Too much innocuous content is being censored, and too much of people are being unjustly kept in a ‘Facebook prison’.”
However, administrators of a bipartisan group that supports Meta’s third-party fact-checking efforts point out that Meta is the final arbiter of what content is published, and that postings from the platform are not allowed. They said they had nothing to do with whether it was removed or not.
“Facts are not censorship. Fact checkers have never censored anything,” Neil Brown, president of the Poynter Media Institute, a nonprofit organization focused on media literacy, said in a statement. Poynter’s PolitiFact is one of the organizations that worked with Meta to check the facts.
Meta’s official fact-checking program was launched in 2016 with a number of third-party partners. v Fact-checked posts were labeled and then demoted, reducing their distribution. However, Mehta said the post was not completely deleted. We will remove serious content violations, such as posts that support terrorism or promote child sexual exploitation.
The sheer volume of content across Facebook, Instagram, and other meta-apps means that most posts are not fact-checked. Furthermore, fact-checking of politicians’ posts was not allowed.
Fact-checked posts were labeled and then demoted, reducing their distribution. Fact-checked posts were not permanently removed. Serious content violations, such as terrorism and child sexual exploitation, will be removed.
“To my knowledge, they did not remove anything simply because it was false. Their deletions were only based on false information that could cause harm,” said International Fact, which also works with Meta. Check Network director Angie Horan told CBS. news. “My goal is an Internet where people can find accurate and reliable information. This is a step backwards, and there’s no other way to describe it.”
“Fact-checking journalism has never censored or removed posts. We add information and context to controversial claims and debunk misinformation and conspiracy theories,” Horan said. he added in a statement posted on social media.
“It has nothing to do with freedom of speech.”
Among Meta’s fact-checking partners, Poynter’s PolitiFact provides independent reviews and discloses sources, but Meta said it has rules for what content is removed.
“This decision has nothing to do with free speech or censorship,” Aaron Sharrockman, executive director of PolitiFact and vice president of sales and strategic partnerships at Poynter, wrote on social media. did.
“Decisions to remove or penalize posts and accounts are made by Meta and Facebook, not by fact checkers. They created the rules,” he added.
Lori Robertson, director of FactCheck.org, a nonpartisan website also affiliated with Meta, also disputed Zuckerberg’s belief that fact-checking contributes to suppressing opinions.
“Our work is not about censorship. We provide accurate information to help social media users navigate their newsfeeds. We have not removed any content, and we do not remove content. I could not. Such decisions were taken by Mehta,” she said.
Another fact-checking group affiliated with Meta also argues that tech giants rely on social media users to monitor posts, similar to the approach used by Elon Musk’s X Platform (formerly known as Twitter). He doubted that there would be a shift to a “community note” model. ), reduce bias and improve content quality.
“In our experience and that of others, community notes on X are often slow to appear, can be downright inaccurate, and can be controversial because they fail to reach agreement or consensus among users. It’s not likely to show up in posts,” said co-founder and chief Maarten Schenk. Reed Stories executive director said in a post on the fact-checking site on Tuesday. “At the end of the day, truth doesn’t care about agreements or agreements. Even if social media users can’t agree, the shape of the Earth won’t change.”
CBS News has a dedicated editorial team called CBS News Confired that fact-checks claims, debunks misinformation and provides important context. You can follow CBS News confirmed on Instagram and TikTok.
