Meta to officially abandon fact-checking program in U.S.

SAN FRANCISCO, April 4 (Xinhua) -- Meta will officially abandon the company's fact-checking program in the United States next Monday, according to its Chief Global Affairs Officer Joel Kaplan.

"By Monday afternoon, our fact-checking program in the U.S. will be officially over. That means no new fact checks and no fact checkers," Kaplan said Friday in a post on social media platform X.

"In place of fact checks, the first Community Notes will start appearing gradually across Facebook, Threads & Instagram, with no penalties attached," Kaplan added.

Meta announced this policy change in January to scrap its third-party fact-checking program and replacing it with a Community Notes program written by users similar to the model used by social media platform X.

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a video announcing the moderation changes that "fact-checkers have been too politically biased" and have "destroyed more trust than they created."

"The recent elections also feel like a cultural tipping point towards once again prioritizing speech," Zuckerberg said.

As Meta began rolling back its fact-checking programs, false content has begun to spread, according to a report by The TechCrunch.