THIS is with reference to the report ‘Biden describes Meta decision to do away with fact-checking as shameful’ (Jan 12). In an age when disinformation, misinformation, hateful speech in the name of free speech and other harmful contents have surged like a raging fire, enveloping everything that comes in its way, it is indeed a challenging task to sift truth through complex pack of lies and falsehood.
In this context, the surprising decision by Meta, the owner of Facebook and other social media platforms, to slash third-party fact-checking starting from the United States, can be a crushing blow to all efforts to curb fake news as well as concocted stories.
In a video titled ‘More speech and fewer mistakes’, Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg announced sweeping changes to content moderation policies, saying that Meta is getting back to its roots, reducing mistakes and simplifying policies and replacing fact-checkers with the community-driven system called community notes, similar to the model used by X, formerly known as Twitter.
The CEO discredited fact-checkers, criticising and characterising them as biased or censorious, saying that they actually destroyed trust more than they had created.
Truly, though the distortion of facts or truth can never be altogether eliminated even with fact-checking, the crucial role of fact-checking organisations in the digital world can hardly be denied or overstated.
These are independent organisations assessing the credibility of the post. If they flag it as false, the post will either be taken down or labelled with the warning. People are more likely to ignore flagged content than to read, share or repost it.
Fact-checking websites scrutinise news stories for accuracy, allowing users to make informed judgement about the information they encounter. Unfortunately, this mechanism faces an existential threat in the wake of Meta’s illogical and unwise decision.
As for a community-driven system, it may sound democratic, but it has its own problems. Often the loudest voice seems to dominate the conversation; not the accurate one. Therefore, it is imperative to have an external system of checks and balances.
Meta’s U-turn is widely criticised as craven, and is seen as an act of political appeasement since the company is trying to rebrand itself as Trump’s associate, following the rocky relationship during Trump’s first term.
It signals Zuckerberg’s desire to mend fences with the incoming US adminis-tration. After all, he is a businessman, and every business has its own vested interest. Let it be known to all that hate speech is not free speech. Regulating harmful content and hate speech is not censorship.
It is, indeed, far from it. We must expose and discourage people who spread lies and disinformation without a scintilla of shame. Last but not least, truth is truth even if no one believes it, and lie is a lie even if everyone believes it. Truth may languish, but cannot perish.
Khadim Hussain Subhpoto
Hyderabad
Published in Dawn, January 18th, 2025
