Earlier this week, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg revealed that Facebook, Instagram, and Threads would stop 3rd-party fact-checking and take a lighter touch with content moderation, moving instead towards a user-generated "Community Notes" model (akin to what Elon Musk-owned X does). Going forward, Meta will focus only on “illegal and high-severity violations.” It will also let users personalize their feed to allow political content. The trust and safety teams that write content policies and review content will move from California to Texas in order to reduce concerns about bias. The new strategy will be rolled out over the next couple months, starting in the US.

The change comes as Meta (alongside other big tech firms) has sought to rebuild its relationship with incoming US president Donald Trump. Meta is working from a deficit, having been in Trump’s line of sight since Facebook and Instagram suspended his accounts in 2021 (they were later reinstated in Jan 2023). Less than a year ago, Trump was suggesting that Zuckerberg could go to jail if Meta was found to be interfering with the election. After the election, in late Nov 2024, Zuckerberg flew out to Mar-a-Lago to dine with Trump, later gifting him with a pair of Meta smartglasses. Meta, alongside Google, Microsoft, Amazon, OpenAI, Apple, and Uber, have each donated $1M to Trump’s inaugural fund – which gets them 6 tickets apiece to inauguration events.

Trump appears delighted with the attention, posting on his social platform Truth Social recently, “EVERYBODY WANTS TO BE MY FRIEND!!!” In response to a journalist question regarding Zuckerberg’s recent announcement, he said about Meta, “Presentation was excellent…They have come a long way.” When asked whether he thought the policy was being changed in response to his past threats, he replied, “Probably.”

While Zuckerberg was the one speaking in the video, the announcement came out under the byline of Joel Kaplan – Meta’s new chief global affairs officer. Kaplan, Meta’s highest-ranking Republican and former VP of global public policy, has lately taken over from longstanding top policy leader and former UK politician Nick Clegg. Zuckerberg has also added Trump ally and UFC head Dana White to Meta’s board of directors.

The announcement puts particular emphasis on returning Meta to “free expression,” a phrase that echoes the priorities among Trump’s appointments. In Nov 2024, Trump named as Federal Communications Commission (FCC) chair Brendan Carr, a current FCC commissioner, former FCC chief counsel, and critic of big tech’s “censorship cartel.” He is expected to focus on free speech as well as lighter regulation and the rural infrastructure rollout, while deprioritizing DEI initiatives.

Similarly, Trump named as chair of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) – which has ongoing investigations against Meta, Amazon, and Microsoft – Andrew Ferguson, a current FTC commissioner and former legal counsel to Mitch McConnell. According to his agenda, Ferguson intends to “reverse Lina Khan’s anti-business agenda,” “protect freedom of speech and fight wokeness,” and “hold big tech accountable and stop censorship.” As sitting commissioners, neither Carr nor Ferguson need to be confirmed by the Senate.

Meta has never wanted to police content. It launched its fact-checking program in 2016 in the aftermath of the election, in response to the backlash against perceived misinformation spread. The decisive election in 2024 – which Zuckerberg called a “cultural tipping point” – essentially gave Meta air cover to do what it wanted to do anyway. (Zuckerberg has described his acceptance of public criticism over past controversies “a 20-year mistake.”)

From a business standpoint, pulling back on content moderation saves Meta money and increases the amount of content on its platforms. (At one point, Meta was paying Accenture $500M per year for content moderation.) Meta has been removing millions of pieces of content every day, and while this represents less than 1% of content produced, Meta believes 10-20% of these actions may have been in error.

Meta’s policy change is unlikely to result in a backlash among advertisers, given Meta’s role as an “essential platform” for them. The efforts by CEOs across the spectrum to sidle up to Trump – who is known to demand loyalty and act punitively towards perceived enemies – are being viewed as part of a “safety in numbers” strategy. Trump has been active in installing loyalists in key regulatory positions with the power to crack down on or reward certain companies.

We may see other big tech firms follow Meta’s lead. After his naming as FCC chair, Carr sent a letter to Meta, Google, Microsoft, and Apple criticizing their fact-checking partners and threatening a “review of your companies’ activities as well as efforts by third-party organizations and groups that have acted to curtail those [First Amendment] rights” once the Trump administration takes over. The letter sought information about a specific news-site ratings company (NewsGuard) and how the big tech firms work with it.

Meta’s platforms may start feeling more like X. One study found that Community Notes on X can take 11 hours to go up, which means there could be more misinformation spreading on social media. (X later announced that notes could go live on a post in as little as 15 minutes, although it could be longer.) We may see a subset of users who prefer a more orderly social-media environment departing Meta’s platforms in favor of alternatives like Bluesky.

Meta’s move means a loss of revenue for fact-checking organizations, many of whom operate on budgets of less than $1M per year. In some cases, an organization’s entire revenue base may come from Meta. Meta’s 10 US fact-checking partnerships will end in Mar 2025, although payments will continue through Aug 2025. For those who have not yet signed a contract for 2025, Meta is offering the option of severance instead.

It’s not clear whether anything will change outside the US. The EU’s Digital Services Act requires content moderation and the takedown of unlawful content, which includes content construed as harmful to children and the EU’s democracies. According to a European Commission spokesperson, the form of the content moderation is not prescribed and “community notes could be a possibility.” The system would have to undergo a risk assessment, which would be reviewed by the EU executive.

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