Posted on 01/13/2025 7:00:37 AM PST by Red Badger
Mark Zuckerberg’s shock decision to scrap fact-checking on Facebook and Instagram has sparked concern and outrage—including from inside the top ranks of the company.
Michael McConnell, co-chair of Meta’s Oversight Board, said in an interview Friday that the move looks like “buckling to political pressure.”
“I would have liked to have seen these reforms laid out in less contentious and partisan times, so that they would be considered on the merits rather than… Donald Trump is president and now they’re caving in,” McConnell told NPR.
According to him, neither he nor the board, an international group of experts in law, human rights, and journalism, were told about the new policy in advance.
Meta executives, however, allegedly informed Trump officials about the change in policy prior to the announcement, a source with knowledge of the conversations told The New York Times.
On Tuesday, Meta announced it would be ending its fact-checking program, aimed at stopping the proliferation of disinformation accross its platforms. The move is the latest of Zuckerberg’s several strategy shifts in response to what he called a “cultural tipping point” from the 2024 election
“It’s time to get back to our roots around free expression,” Zuckerberg said in his announcement. He added that the company’s old policy had “reached a point where it’s just too many mistakes and too much censorship.”
The Meta exec explained that it would rely on users to correct inaccurate or false information, in a manner akin to X’s “Community Notes,” taking a backseat to more political content.
Although Zuckerberg acknowledged that the new program would “catch less bad stuff,” he argued “we’ll also reduce the number of innocent people’s posts and accounts that we accidentally take down.”
McConnell, meanwhile, appeared less than convinced by Meta’s new plan.
“I’m not, you know, overly confident that this is going to be the solution. There is really no magic bullet to this problem,” he said.
Regardless of efficacy, McConnell described the optics of Zuckerberg’s strategy as “bad.”
Since Donald Trump’s election victory, the Meta chief has joined a growing number of tycoons cozying up to the MAGA candidate. Zuckerberg dined with Trump at Mar-a-Lago in November and later donated $1 million to the president-elect’s inauguration. And, on Monday, he announced Dana White, a close ally of Trump, would join the Meta board.
Heck, they hate free anything, except money................
Here’s a magic bullet to this problem. Let me sue FB for $1M every time they violated my free speech and oppressed me because of my beliefs.
Hold them accountable as a publisher for every illegal thing posted that they didn’t remove as well.
I’m sure they’ll figure it out quick enough if we were allowed to sue them.
Hey D bag, how about free speech is the right choice at any time regardless of who is president. You guys have been wrong this whole time and your monopoly (which needs looking into/busting) is the only reason this BS hasn’t gone away.
Liberals are all in for ‘Free Speech’......................theirs, not yours...........
Liberals are all in for ‘Free Speech’......................theirs, not yours...........
“Your speech is violence! Our violence is speech!”
He’s right, of course. Zuck is only doing this out of fear of Trump, probably won’t actually loosen the censorship he promises, and will reverse all this if a Democrat wins in 2028 anyway.
The board member is not acting in the best interests of stockholders airing a disagreement of this nature to the press.
Also probably violating a ton of board and stock exchange policies. The board speaks and acts as a body, or not at all.
Shareholders need to sue the crap out of him.
Probably ignorant of that fact.
Should be fired/removed immediately...............
Guess what happened if you challenged a fact check based on the fact checkers bias too many times? Facebook Jail!
Guess what happened if you challenged a fact check based on the fact checkers bias too many times? Facebook Jail!
Michael McConnell, co-chair of Meta’s Oversight Board, said in an interview Friday that the move looks like “buckling to political pressure.”
Yah, sorry, Mikey, an “Oversight Board” is not the same as the board of directors - and that is the body that Dana White just went on.
“Oversight Board” is basically a participation trophy.
he’s not on the board of directors and only they have the duties you correctly pointed out. (This is why Elon was able to buy Twitter....the BOD had no choice, really. His offer was such a ridiculous premium over share price, they would have been destroyed in court had they tried not to accept).
The Meta “Oversight Board” is just related to content moderation. They have no real public company power. They are just a creation of management. In fact, the real BOD could dismiss/disolve the “Ovesight Board” if they wanted to.
Dana White may well want to do just that :)
“On Tuesday, Meta announced it would be ending its fact-checking program, aimed at stopping the proliferation of disinformation accross its platforms.”
This statement assumes facts not in evidence. There is plenty of reason to believe the policy was aimed at suppressing conservative viewpoints, including factual statements such as vote-switching, etc.
I’ve been on public boards. We had a week long training and each assigned our own lawyer to walk through the requirements.
If he claimed ignorance, a vaguely competent lawyer would hand him the agreement with his John Hancock in it and jam it right up his leftist ass.
Is it not a committee of the real board?
“Zuck is only doing this out of fear of Trump, probably won’t actually loosen the censorship he promises”
This morning, Chicks On The Right read an email from one of their viewers. Yesterday on FB he posted something about the fires and was censored — was prohibited from using the word, “Newsom”. (Not sure if it happened, but that’s what he said.)
“...the move looks like “buckling to political pressure...”
Nahh...he did that already. This is CYA
Meta’s stock has been doing very well, they should be afraid of creating a rift within the company - investors don’t like disruption. If the stock price takes a dive it becomes a takeover candidate, especially if Tiktok is sold/saved.
“Less contentious and partisan times”
I don’t think there was such a thing at any point after 2015.
Zuckerberg’s Rogan statements indicate that this “contentious and partisan” situation, of partisan political pressure, was a constant.
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