This press release comes from The Free Press, a classic conservative media outlet founded by former NY Times opinion editor Bari Weiss. As far as conservative media goes, The Free Press is a worthy outlet reporting facts and being fair. They have a right-wing POV but it’s not at all like Fox News or podcasts you’d find on Rumble. Initially, when I saw this announcement and its source, I was about to go to the next email. But The Free Press has a different view on misinformation/free speech than other conservative media does.
Debating pro-Trump “Republicans” isn’t easy because they distrust *any* fact-checking site. And its hard to debate if you can’t agree on a set of actual facts. All you have to do is ask: “did Trump win the 2020 election?” or “Was January 6 an attack on the Capitol and Democracy or a peaceful protest.”
Here’s the release:
Meta’s Abandonment of Content Moderation and Fact Checking Points to a Chilling New Era of Big Tech Backsliding
Mark Zuckerberg announces plan to adopt Elon Musk’s approach to enabling the spread of lies and hate, masking the cynical move in the rhetoric of free speech
WASHINGTON — On Tuesday, Meta founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced that the platform giant will abandon professional third-party content moderation and fact checking in favor of the user-generated “Community Notes” model Elon Musk uses.
Zuckerberg characterized the move, which will take effect on Facebook and Instagram, as a defense of free speech, denigrating trained fact checkers as “too politically biased.” Meta’s new approach will begin in the United States, Zuckerberg said, adding that his company will work with the Trump administration to oppose any foreign governments’ policies that attempt to rein in the global spread of hate and disinformation and curtail other abuses from powerful technology companies like Google, Meta and X.
Just prior to the 2024 U.S. elections, the Center for Countering Digital Hate studied X’s Community Notes approach and found that the system broadly failed to display corrections on false and misleading claims about the elections. At the time of the report’s release last October, these unchecked posts had amassed more than two billion views.
Free Press Senior Counsel and Director of Digital Justice and Civil Rights Nora Benavidez said:
“Contrary to Mark Zuckerberg’s claims, content moderation has never been a tool to repress free speech; it is a principle that the platforms themselves developed to promote dialogue and protect truth for users. Meta’s new promise to scale back fact checking isn’t surprising — Zuckerberg is one of many billionaires who are cozying up to dangerous demagogues like Trump and pushing initiatives that favor their bottom lines at the expense of everything and everyone else.
“Just last week we learned that Meta smart glasses were used in a deadly attack that killed 14 people in New Orleans. A responsible platform owner would pause, wonder about the harm his products are causing and tread carefully. Not Zuckerberg. Instead, he’s abandoning all efforts to protect public health, safety and our democracy. He’s saying yes to more lies, yes to more harassment, yes to more hate.
“While Zuckerberg characterized the platform giant’s new approach as a defense of free speech, its real intentions are twofold: Ditch the technology company’s responsibility to protect its many users, and align the company more closely with an incoming president who’s a known enemy of accountability.
“Everyone should be concerned when major technology firms and their billionaire owners kowtow to a leader like Trump who is intent on undermining the checks and balances that are fundamental to a healthy democracy. By wrapping his move in the rhetoric of the First Amendment, Zuckerberg himself is also dodging accountability.“
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The Article should be titled “Say Goodbye to Facebook oppression of conservative views and collusion with Dem government operatives to shut up those that disagree with “approved “ speech moderated by people with a progressive agenda. “ Zuck knows his platform has been abusive to those that reject identity politics , the lie of “Transgender” orientation, DEI reverse discrimination and all the other causes that the left champions. What’s hilarious is the Dem/Lib contingent posturing as the “Champions of Free Speech” when in reality, that want to eliminate any expression of opinion that differs from there own because they perceive it as a personal attack.
Hate to break it to you Bob, but facts have a liberal bias. Disinformation/Misinformation is untrustworthy but please do call that free speech