Meta IS suspending the crucial Third Party Fact-Checking program
We’re entering a new era of the internet where the guardrails and safety measures that organizations fought so hard for within tech companies have vanished overnight. This week, Meta Founder & CEO announced that he was suspending the crucial Third Party Fact-Checking program, which provides all users with access to factual information when a new story or any piece of content is flagged as false. This is a critical program not only for combating election misinformation but also for addressing healthcare and immigration misinformation spreading across the U.S. Instead, the company is relying on a version of community notes, similar to X, that has not been proven to stop the spread of misinformation during pivotal times. Instead, it mirrors a comment section of any post. Without journalists and individuals who are non-partisan and dedicated to protecting and seeking out the truth, what does the future look like on Facebook, Instagram, and Threads?
It’s obvious that Zuckerberg, like Musk and Bezos, is bowing down to the Trump administration less than 24 hours after his presidency was certified. These are the people who are supposed to be protecting you, yet instead, they are solely watching out for their bottom line. Zuckerberg's scaling back of Trust and Safety measures marks a dark turn for one of the biggest technology companies in the world. This decision impacts not only New Yorkers and Americans but every single person who has access to social media.
We are now entering a time of true absence of any meaningful technology policy on the federal level. We suspect that other technology companies will soon follow Zuckerberg's lead and abandon efforts to protect users from bullying and harassment based on their ethnicity, sexual orientation, or political beliefs. It’s time for states and cities to create legislative agendas that hold these technology companies accountable for the harms they are causing to our livelihoods.
Read more:
https://kairosdemocracyproject.com/the-weaponization-of-misinformation