White House silent on Meta’s decision to end fact-checking program

The White House declined to weigh in on Meta’s unexpected decision to end its third-party fact-checking program in the United States, a move that has sparked widespread debate over the future of content moderation on social media platforms.

“When any corporation or company makes a decision… we just are not going to comment,” White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said during Friday’s briefing. She noted that social media companies “make their own rules” regarding content moderation but emphasized their “important role to play in enforcing their own rules to prevent the spread of misinformation.”

The announcement by Meta founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg on Tuesday marked a significant shift in the company’s approach to combating misinformation. Zuckerberg defended the decision, citing concerns over political bias and what he described as “too much censorship” resulting from the fact-checking program.

Instead, Meta’s platforms, Facebook and Instagram, will adopt a crowd-sourced moderation feature called “Community Notes,” which is modeled after a similar tool used by Elon Musk’s X platform. Community Notes allows users to add context to posts, but researchers have raised concerns about its reliability in effectively combating misinformation.

The decision has drawn backlash from various quarters, particularly given the timing, as the 2024 election cycle approaches. Critics argue that removing third-party fact-checkers could further erode trust in online information, while supporters of the move view it as a necessary step to address concerns of censorship, particularly from conservative voices.

Meta’s fact-checking program had long been a target of criticism from supporters of former President Donald Trump and others who alleged that conservative viewpoints were disproportionately stifled under the guise of misinformation control. Professional fact-checkers have strongly refuted such claims, insisting their work remains impartial and evidence-based.