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Meta's abandonment of content moderation and fact-checking poses a threat to the millions of Facebook and Instagram users who are especially susceptible to misinformation. Although Zuckerburg argues this change will "allow individuals to take a more personalized approach to content," now more than ever, it's imperative for public relations professionals, advertisers, and business owners to maintain journalistic integrity across all social media platforms. #Meta, #Facebook, #Instagram, #PublicRelations, #JournalisticIntegrity

Meta Platforms Inc. is making major changes to its content moderation policies, eliminating its fact-checking program and bringing more political conversations back to feeds on Facebook and Instagram, as part of a bid by CEO Mark Zuckerberg to “restore free expression” on its platforms.

How To Deliberately Undermine Democracy Z. must think he's as smart as Musk to be able to save money by cutting back on some sensitive protocols on Facebook--all of which happen to meet with Musk's disfavor. My guess is there are (were) many dozens of employees involved in weeding out unacceptable or violent content on Facebook. But Musk is not upfront about censorship: Most of us agree that censorship must be avoided--but instead Musk invites crazies, violent people, Russians, paid fake hackers, anti-semites, and seditionists--and bad money always drives out well-intentioned money. Both Z. and Bezos (Amazon and the Washington Post's boss--the editorial board of the Post chickened out of any endorsement) gave $1million to Trump's campaign. The Post's cartoonist just quit. The LA Times is in a similar tangle. Why is our AG not pursuing what appears to be extortion? Where does bullying stop and criminal threats begin? Musk and Trump don't care about rules unless they create them themselves--and even that can change with a smile or a frown or a poor bottom line. Z., Bezos and Musk's X just "paid" Trump to not criticize them too much. The cowardice behind this greed has no end. History will remember these cyber-captains of post-capitalism--and forget them immediately. They make the nearly forgotten capitalist robber barons around 1900 seem almost kind. But not one American in a 1000 can tell you exactly how those barons achieved or failed in their ventures. Try to name just one current chief of a large media empire who doesn't shake in his or her new shoes when Trump or Musk speak. Muskism is Trumpism with the addition of Musk's ox horns. Isn't goring adversaries really more "efficient" than Musk negotiating with them? Why invent an expensive DOGE bureaucracy? You can't reduce bureaucracy by adding another one. Both the MAGA crowd and their victims have finished their 15 minutes of fame. #BullyForYou #Muskism #Trumpism #DoOneToOthers

Much talked about in media already this week - what are the implications of this for media planners/ buyers? Will be interesting to see how this sits with UK brands as Meta seems to be following the march rightwards in general from US media. This will indeed provoke some hand-wringing in media planning - will Meta follow Twitter and turn into a more and more populist platform - generating more controversial content, which will definitely have risks attached as various brands found out from Twitter’s buy-out by Musk. It does also represent a large risk to Meta’s business performance and its own value - corporates are now so conscious of brand safety, any movement that starts building on that platform will instantly create a reaction - especially in the most risk averse sectors which took flight from Twitter when its direction of travel became clear. Zuckerberg must be aware of this as Meta is, after all, a media corporation now. Meta is a significant part of most larger brands ad inventory so where next if Facebook and Instagram do lurch off course. Perhaps back into media without subjective content? More into TikTok? Will TikTok survive the US congress moves to ban it? If TikTok goes as well, where next? Interesting times in media planning! Content consumers need to be more conscious than ever of bias in what they’re reading and fact checking on social media ‘news’, as it becomes less based on facts and more based on influencer opinions.

Free to Express or Free to Choose? It seems Meta is evolving with the times to equalize, for lack of a better term, its content. It’s an interesting article about plans to review Facebook content without policing posts. I am surprised that Meta would follow the lead set by X. It’s going to be interesting to see how #socialmedia evolves in the coming months.

Mark Zuckerberg has announced fact-checking is on his OUT list for 2025. "He says Donald Trump's election win represents a "cultural tipping point" in favour of free speech, and his company will work with Trump to push back on censorship. The president-elect has praised the changes and says Zuckerberg is "probably" responding to the threats he's made against the Meta CEO in the past." That cyber-pissing contest aside: 1. What do you think of this? 2. How does this impact you and your industry? 3. Will it change the way you market your business in 2025? 4. Will it change how you use Meta products as a consumer? https://lnkd.in/giiTVejy #socialmedia #meta #ohboy

Meta Ends Fact-Checking on Facebook, Instagram in Free-Speech Pitch: An anonymous reader shares a report: Mark Zuckerberg built up Facebook's content-policing efforts in the wake of Donald Trump's first presidential election. Now the Meta Platforms CEO is reversing course as he embraces a second Trump presidency. Meta is ending fact-checking and removing restrictions on speech across Facebook and Instagram, Zuckerberg said in a video Tuesday, a move he described as an attempt to restore free expression on its platforms. "We're going to get back to our roots and focus on reducing mistakes, simplifying our policies and restoring free expression on our platforms," Zuckerberg said in the video. He said Meta is getting rid of fact-checkers and, starting in the U.S., replacing them with a so-called Community Notes system similar to that on Elon Musk's X platform in which users flag posts they think need more context. While Meta will continue to target illegal behavior, Zuckerberg wrote in a separate post on Threads, it will stop enforcing content rules about immigration and gender that are "out of touch with mainstream discourse." Zuckerberg's plan is likely to reshape the experience of billions of people who use Meta's platforms. It steers sharply away from efforts started years ago in response to complaints from users, advertisers and politicians that abusive and deceptive content had run amok on Meta's suite of apps. The effort to rein in such speech sparked its own backlash from people -- especially on the political right -- who said it often strayed into censorship. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Facebook and Instagram get rid of fact checkers Meta is abandoning the use of independent fact checkers on Facebook and Instagram, replacing them with X-style "community notes" where commenting on the accuracy of posts is left to users. 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗺𝗼𝘃𝗲 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗲𝘀 𝗮𝘀 𝗭𝘂𝗰𝗸𝗲𝗿𝗯𝗲𝗿𝗴 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗼𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗿 𝘁𝗲𝗰𝗵 𝗲𝘅𝗲𝗰𝘂𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗲𝘀 𝘀𝗲𝗲𝗸 𝘁𝗼 𝗶𝗺𝗽𝗿𝗼𝘃𝗲 𝗿𝗲𝗹𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝗨𝗦 𝗣𝗿𝗲𝘀𝗶𝗱𝗲𝗻𝘁-𝗲𝗹𝗲𝗰𝘁 𝗗𝗼𝗻𝗮𝗹𝗱 𝗧𝗿𝘂𝗺𝗽 𝗯𝗲𝗳𝗼𝗿𝗲 𝗵𝗲 𝘁𝗮𝗸𝗲𝘀 𝗼𝗳𝗳𝗶𝗰𝗲 𝗹𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗿 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝗺𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗵. #meta #facebook #instagram #socialmedia #factchecking #misinformation #disinformation #propoganda #fakenews #technology #tech

There is no such thing as “free expression” in our digital world. It appears our tech billionaires now feel fully empowered to blatantly manipulate society at scale. How should we respond? What tools are available to counter this, and how might they be distributed - along with the necessary education and information - at scale? OR… are huge numbers of people ok with this? It’s an interesting start to 2025.

Meta Ends Fact-Checking on Facebook, Instagram in Free-Speech Pitch: An anonymous reader shares a report: Mark Zuckerberg built up Facebook's content-policing efforts in the wake of Donald Trump's first presidential election. Now the Meta Platforms CEO is reversing course as he embraces a second Trump presidency. Meta is ending fact-checking and removing restrictions on speech across Facebook and Instagram, Zuckerberg said in a video Tuesday, a move he described as an attempt to restore free expression on its platforms. "We're going to get back to our roots and focus on reducing mistakes, simplifying our policies and restoring free expression on our platforms," Zuckerberg said in the video. He said Meta is getting rid of fact-checkers and, starting in the U.S., replacing them with a so-called Community Notes system similar to that on Elon Musk's X platform in which users flag posts they think need more context. While Meta will continue to target illegal behavior, Zuckerberg wrote in a separate post on Threads, it will stop enforcing content rules about immigration and gender that are "out of touch with mainstream discourse." Zuckerberg's plan is likely to reshape the experience of billions of people who use Meta's platforms. It steers sharply away from efforts started years ago in response to complaints from users, advertisers and politicians that abusive and deceptive content had run amok on Meta's suite of apps. The effort to rein in such speech sparked its own backlash from people -- especially on the political right -- who said it often strayed into censorship. Read more of this story at Slashdot.