Meta's fact-checking partners on Tuesday are pushing back against Mark Zuckerberg's suggestion that their work amounts to censorship.
In the announcement of the social media giant Decision to end fact-checking On Facebook, Instagram and other meta platforms in the US, Zuckerberg said the move would “dramatically reduce the amount of censorship on our platforms.” in a facebook Post Explaining the change to the company's community-driven moderation approach, Meta's chief global affairs officer Joel Kaplan also said that “a lot of harmless content gets censored, a lot of people find themselves being censored the wrong way.” Find yourself locked in 'Facebook jail'.”
But those who run the nonpartisan organizations behind Meta's third-party fact-checking efforts said they had no concern with whether a post was removed from a platform, noting that the company Was the final arbiter of the content to be published.
“Facts are not censorship. Fact-checkers never censor anything,” Neal Brown, president of the Poynter Institute for Media Studies, a nonprofit dedicated to media literacy, said in a statement. Poynter's PolitiFact is one of the organizations that worked closely with Meta on fact-checking.
Meta's official fact-checking program was launched in 2016 with several third-party partners. The sheer volume of content on Facebook, Instagram and other meta apps meant that most posts were not fact-checked. Additionally, fact checking was not allowed on politicians' posts.
Angie Holan, director of the International Fact-Checking Network, which also works with Meta, told CBS, “To my knowledge they never removed anything just because it was wrong – their removals were only with misinformation that was Could cause harm.” news. “My goal is to create an Internet where people can go and find information that is accurate and reliable and this is a step backward, there's no other way to put it.”
Hollan said in an article, “Fact-checking journalism has never censored or removed posts; it has added information and context to controversial claims, and it rejects fake content and conspiracy theories.” statement Posted on social media.
Among Meta's fact-checking partners, Poynter's PolitiFact said it offered independent reviews and disclosed its sources, while Meta set the rules about what content was removed.
“This decision has nothing to do with free speech or censorship,” said Aaron Sharrockman, executive director of PolitiFact and Poynter's vice president for sales and strategic partnerships. Posted On social media.
“The decision to remove or penalize a post or account is made by Meta and Facebook, not by fact checkers. They made the rules,” he said.
Lori Robertson, director of the nonpartisan website FactCheck.org, which has also partnered with Meta, also disputed Zuckerberg's notion that fact-checking contributed to the suppression of opinion.
He said, “Our work is not about censorship. We provide accurate information to help social media users navigate their news feeds. We do not and cannot remove content. We have no intention of doing so. The decision was Meta's.”
Another fact-checking organization working with Meta also questioned whether a change was being made to the “Community Notes” model, in which the technology giant relies on social media users to monitor posts, which is similar to Elon Musk's The approach is similar to that used in the X platform (formerly known as Twitter). ), will reduce bias and improve the quality of content.
“In our and others' experience, community notes on is,” Maarten Schenk, co-founder and chief operating officer of Lead Stories, said in a Post Fact-checking site Tuesday. “After all, truth doesn't care about consensus or agreement: The Earth's shape remains the same, even if social media users don't agree on it.”
CBS News has a dedicated editorial team, CBS News confirmedWhich fact-checks claims, exposes misinformation, and provides important context. You can follow CBS News Confirmed Instagram And tiktok,