There was a time when Mark Zuckerberg did not consider the mainstream media to be the enemy. He even let me, a senior card-carrying media representative, into his house. In April 2018, I went there to hear his plans to do the right thing. Writing has been part of my long-standing involvement with Facebook book. Over the past two years, Zuckerberg’s company has been heavily criticized for its failure to stop misinformation and hate speech. Now the teenage founder had a plan to solve this problem.
Part of the solution, he told me, is more content moderation. He intended to hire many more people to review posts, even if it cost Facebook significant capital. It would also escalate efforts to utilize artificial intelligence to proactively remove harmful content. “It’s no longer enough to give people the tools to express their desires and then let our community report them and try to respond after the fact,” he told me as we sat in his sunroom. “We need to get out there more and just play a more active role.” He admitted that he was tardy to realize how harmful toxic content on Facebook was, but now he decided to solve the problem, even though it could take years. “I think we’re doing the right thing,” he told me. “We just should have done it sooner.”
Seven years later, Zuckerberg no longer believes that more moderation is the right thing to do. IN five-minute videocharacterized his actions in support of the initiative as a regrettable concession to the government’s lockjaw on Covid and other topics. He announced a move away from content moderation – no more proactively removing and downgrading disinformation and hate speech – and ending a fact-checking program aimed at debunking lies circulating on his platforms. Fact-checking by trusted sources has been replaced by “community notes,” a crowdsourcing approach in which users provide alternative views on the veracity of posts. This technique is exactly what he told me in 2018 that “won’t do.” While he now admits his changes will allow “more bad things to happen,” he says it’s worth it in 2025 to see more “freedom of expression” flourish.
The policy change was one of several moves that indicated that, whether or not Zuckerberg wanted to do it in the first place, Meta is adapting to the fresh Trump administration. You’ve heard this litany, and it has become a meme in itself. Meta promoted its top lobbyist, former GOP operative Joel Kaplan, to director of global affairs; he immediately appeared on Fox News (and only Fox News) to tout the fresh policy. Zuckerberg also announced that Meta would be moving content writing and review staff from California to Texas to “help address concerns that biased employees are excessively censoring content.” Solved the DEI Meta program. (Where is Sheryl Sandberg, who was so proud of Meta’s diversity efforts? Sheryl? Sheryl?) Meta changed some of its terms of service to allow users to demean LGBTQ people.
Now that a week has passed since Meta’s change of stance – and my first look at Zuckerberg’s speech – I’m particularly concerned about one aspect: He seems to have downgraded a core practice of classic journalism, labeling it as no better than the unreported observations of podcasters, influencers and countless random people on his platforms. This was mentioned in his Reel when he repeatedly used the term “legacy media” as a pejorative: a force that he believes incites censorship and suppresses free expression. All this time I thought the opposite!
The mention of his revised version of credibility is due to the shift from fact checkers to community notes. It’s true that the fact-checking process didn’t work well – in part because Zuckerberg didn’t defend Checkers when ill-intentioned critics accused them of bias. It’s also reasonable to expect community notes to be a useful signal that a post may be in error. However, the power of rebuttal fails when participants in a conversation reject the idea that disagreements can be resolved with convincing evidence. This is the fundamental difference between fact-checking – which Zuckerberg got rid of – and the community notes he introduces. The fact-checking worldview assumes that ultimate facts, determined through research, talking to people, and sometimes even believing one’s own eyes, can be conclusive. The art consists in recognizing authorities who have gained public trust by striving for the truth. Alternative views are welcome in community notes, but it’s up to you to decide which ones are credible. There is something about the antidote to bad speech being more speech. However, if verifiable facts cannot successfully disprove Flapdoodle’s easily debunked claim, we are stuck in the suicidal quicksand of Babel.
Donald Trump, Zuckerberg’s fresh role model, consciously decided to make this world a reality. 60 minutes reporter Leslie Stahl he once asked Trump why he insulted reporters who were just doing their job. – Do you know why I’m doing this? he replied. “I’m doing this to discredit and humiliate you all, so when you write negative stories about me, no one will believe you.” In 2021, Trump further disclosed the intention to profit from an attack on the truth. “If you say it enough and keep repeating it, they will start to believe you,” he said at the rally. The implication of this is that if social media promotes lies enough, people will believe them too. Especially if previously recognized authorities are discredited and humiliated.