By Brooklynn, Scarlett, Nathalie, Aida and IndyKids Staff
Dima Solomin on Unsplash
On Jan. 7, 2025, Mark Zuckerberg, the owner of Meta, announced the end of its fact-checking program. This new policy affects Facebook and Instagram. Meta has lifted restrictions on certain topics to allow for “more speech.” Meta claims that the priority is for users to have more freedom of speech and for Meta to make fewer mistakes in policing content.
Meta’s fact-checking program started after the 2016 U.S. presidential election, when Russia spread disinformation on social media with the intention of misleading the public.
Mark Zuckerberg’s relationship with President Donald Trump has evolved over the years. After the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, Trump was banned from Meta for two years. According to a report by NPR, “Trump has accused Zuckerberg personally of election interference and threatened him with life in prison.” Zuckerberg attended Trump’s inauguration on Jan. 20.
The tradeoff is there might be more harmful content on Meta’s platforms, but users will have fewer restrictions on speech. Meta’s hateful conduct policy is being loosened, allowing for more “insulting language” and “calls for exclusion” to be used to discuss immigration policy, gendered spaces and professions, and LGBTQ rights.
