Conservatives on social media took a victory lap on Tuesday in response to the news that Meta had ended its controversial fact-checking practices and promised to move toward a system more focused on free speech.
‘Meta finally admits to censoring speech…what a great birthday present to wake up to and a huge win for free speech,’ GOP Sen. Rand Paul posted on X on Tuesday in response to news, first reported by Fox News Digital, that Meta is ending its fact-checking program and lifting restrictions on speech to ‘restore free expression’ across Facebook, Instagram and Meta platforms, admitting its current content moderation practices have ‘gone too far.’
‘Jaw dropping—he explicitly says Meta will ‘adopt a system like X has of community notes’ because of the bias/abuse of 3rd party fact checkers,’ Independent Women’s Forum visiting fellow Lyndsey Fifield posted on X in response to Meta’s chief global affairs officer, Joel Kaplan, speaking to Fox News Channel’s ‘Fox & Friends’ Tuesday morning for an exclusive interview to discuss the changes.
‘Nature is healing,’ Fifield said.
‘There is absolutely 0 chance this would have happened if Trump didn’t win,’ Abigail Jackson, communications director for GOP Sen. Josh Hawley, posted on X.
‘Here is the full video from Mark Zuckerberg announcing the end of censorship and misinformation policies,’ Breaking Points co-host Sagaar Enjeti posted on X. ‘I highly recommend you watch all of it as tonally it is one of the biggest indications of ‘elections have consequences’ I have ever seen.’
‘Zuck is committed to cleaning house,’ journalist Jordan Schachtel posted on X. ‘Question the motives or not, this is a very real commitment and it’s good news for speech on the internet. Of course, probably not possible to pull off without Trump winning.’
Meta’s third-party fact-checking program was put in place after the 2016 election and had been used to ‘manage content’ and misinformation on its platforms, largely due to ‘political pressure,’ executives said, but admitted the system has ‘gone too far.’
Since then, the process has drawn the ire of conservatives who have accused the platform of politically driven censoring while pointing to several examples of content being silenced, including the bombshell New York Post reporting on Hunter Biden’s laptop, which Zuckerberg admitted the Biden White House pressured him to do and later called the move a mistake.
Kaplan said Meta currently uses automated systems, which he said make ‘too many mistakes’ and removes content ‘that doesn’t even violate our standards.’ He also said there are certain things Meta will continue to moderate, like posts relating to terrorism, illegal drugs and child sexual exploitation.
Zuckerberg also pointed out in his video message on Tuesday that moderation teams will be moving from California to Texas, where he suggested there will be ‘less concern about the bias of our teams.’
‘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. ‘More specifically, we’re going to get rid of fact-checkers and replace them with Community Notes similar to X, starting in the U.S.’
Fox News Digital’s Brooke Singman contributed to this report.
