Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg : ‘We’re Going To Get Rid Of Fact-Checkers’

Facebook has courted controversy for years over a feature that provides supposed “fact checks” from primarily left-leaning sources that seemed to disproportionately target conservative content.

As President Donald Trump prepares for his return to the White House, however, the CEO of Facebook parent company Meta is promoting a new policy shift for the company that he says will prioritize free speech.

According to Fox News:

“We’re going to get back to our roots and focus on reducing mistakes, simplifying our policies and restoring free expression on our platforms,” Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a video posted Tuesday morning. “More specifically, we’re going to get rid of fact-checkers and replace them with Community Notes similar to X, starting in the U.S.”

Meta’s chief global affairs officer, Joel Kaplan, joined Fox News Channel’s “Fox & Friends” Tuesday morning for an exclusive interview to discuss the changes.

“This is a great opportunity for us to reset the balance in favor of free expression. As Mark says in that video, what we’re doing is we’re getting back to our roots and free expression,” Kaplan told “Fox & Friends.”

Meta’s third-party fact-checking program was put in place after the 2016 election and had been used to “manage content” and misinformation on its platforms, largely due to “political pressure,” executives said, but admitted the system has “gone too far.”

The news immediately sparked widespread social media reactions, some that praised Zuckerberg’s move and others expressing skepticism:

BREAKING: Facebook to remove fact-checkers, and replace them with a system similar to X’s Community Notes.

This is huge.

I can’t tell you how many times I have been “fact-checked” by an intern at some outlet for a meme.

Burn it all to the ground.

— Ryan Fournier (@RyanAFournier) January 7, 2025

Wow… this is amazing…Mark Zuckerberg announcing a complete U-turn on all woke censorship & cancel
culture bullsh*t.. good for you @finkd and good for @elonmusk who has led the charge on free speech. 👏👏 https://t.co/B8TESCjumm

— Piers Morgan (@piersmorgan) January 7, 2025

BREAKING: Facebook has announced they will be removing the far-left fact checkers and replace them with community notes.

They also promise more free speech.

This comes after Dana White joins the board.

Do you believe them?

— PeterSweden (@PeterSweden7) January 7, 2025

🚨 BREAKING: Mark Zuckerberg announces sweeping changes to Facebook and Instagram to move toward Free Speech including:

-Ending Third-Party Fact Checking and Replacing it with Community Notes like 𝕏
-Removing Reduction of Political Content
-Lifting Topic Restrictions pic.twitter.com/9Y2DVQSrpk

— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) January 7, 2025

This weasel is not to be trusted. Hopefully he'll be investigated, arrested, and put in prison for his election interference in the 2020 election. https://t.co/LNHAsy3lBz

— Catturd ™ (@catturd2) January 7, 2025

Newsweek provided additional coverage of the shift, including the inspiration Meta seemed to have taken from Elon Musk-owned X:

Zuckerberg said on Tuesday that he intended to implement “major changes to its censorship policy,” including removing fact-checkers and replacing them with a community notes system.

He said that Meta platforms, which include Facebook and Instagram, would no longer apply restrictions on politically sensitive topics, such as immigration and gender, describing the regulations as “out of touch with mainstream discourse.”

He also appeared to condemn the use of regulations to block debate, reflecting an increasingly pro-free speech attitude in Silicon Valley that has developed in recent years.

“What started as a movement to be more inclusive has increasingly been used to shut down opinions and shut out people with different ideas, and it’s gone too far,” he said.

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“So I want to make sure that people can share their beliefs and experiences on our platforms.”

Here’s some additional coverage of Meta’s latest move: