While Republicans largely cheered Meta’s announcement on Tuesday that it would effectively end its fact-checking program, several tech watchdog groups condemned the decision, warning of the potential for a surge in disinformation.
Nicole Gill, executive director of Accountable Tech, said in a statement that the decision was “a gift to Donald Trump and extremists around the world.” Meta, she cautioned, was inviting “the exact same surge of hate, disinformation and conspiracy theories” that fueled the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.
Nora Benavidez, senior counsel at the advocacy group Free Press, said in a statement that Mark Zuckerberg, Meta’s chief executive, was “saying yes to more lies, yes to more harassment, yes to more hate.”
“While Zuckerberg characterized the platform giant’s new approach as a defense of free speech, its real intentions are twofold: Ditch the technology company’s responsibility to protect the health and safety of its users, and align the company more closely with an incoming president who’s a known enemy of accountability,” Ms. Benavidez said.
Valerie Wirtschafter, a fellow at the Brookings Institution, said that Meta should have continued to build on its fact-checking resources, adding crowdsourced content to existing practices. As they stand, Meta’s changes are “likely to make the information environment worse,” she said.
But Meta’s announcement was greeted with open arms by President-elect Donald J. Trump, who has long claimed that the feature unfairly treated posts by conservative users.
In an unrelated news conference at Mar-a-Lago on Tuesday, Mr. Trump said that Meta had “come a long way,” conceding that the change was “probably” in response to threats that he has made against the company and Mr. Zuckerberg. A chorus of Republican lawmakers, who have echoed Mr. Trump’s claims about censorship of conservative viewpoints, chimed in to praise the move.
Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky called it “a huge win for free speech” in a post on X. Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio called Meta’s decision “a huge step in the right direction.”
At least one Republican lawmaker voiced skepticism of Meta’s decision. Senator Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee said in a post on X that Meta’s change was “a ploy to avoid being regulated,” though she, too, repeated the claim that Meta has censored conservatives.
