Meta Backs Down from Censorship Program, Will Release Content Creators from 'Facebook Jail'

By Benjamin Gill - Posted at CBN:

Published January 7, 2025

The parent company of Facebook and Instagram has announced it's putting an end to its program that restricted free speech and censored messages that its "fact checkers" didn't agree with.

The Meta company is officially scrapping its third-party fact-checking program. Instead, it'll be shifting to a Community Notes model similar to what Elon Musk has used on his social media platform X. That method of accountability allows users to weigh in on the veracity of posts.

Meta is admitting that its third-party fact-checkers had their own biases and too much content ended up being silenced. Critics have said that all the "fact-checking" just ended up becoming a pathway for censorship.

In a post titled "More Speech and Fewer Mistakes," Meta's Chief Global Affairs Officer Joel Kaplan admitted, "...we are making too many mistakes, frustrating our users and too often getting in the way of the free expression we set out to enable. Too much harmless content gets censored, too many people find themselves wrongly locked up in 'Facebook jail,' and we are often too slow to respond when they do."

Kaplan said the biases of its fact-checkers are a serious problem. "Over time we ended up with too much content being fact checked that people would understand to be legitimate political speech and debate," he said.

And that censorship pressure didn't just come from "independent fact-checkers." As CBN News reported last year, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg admitted that the Biden White House pressured Facebook and Instagram to censor stories it didn't like.



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