Biden calls Meta’s decision to drop factchecking ‘really shameful’
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The president strongly criticized Meta’s decision to replace factchecking department with community notes. Joe Biden has pushed back on Meta chief executive officer Mark Zuckerberg’s decision to replace Facebook factchecking departments with company-moderated community notes, calling the decision a “really shameful” choice.
“The whole idea of walking away from factchecking as well as not reporting anything having to do with discrimination regarding … I find it to be contrary to American justice,” the outgoing president told reporters during a press call on Friday. “Telling the truth matters.”.
Zuckerberg said last week that the decision to end the factchecking practice on Facebook, Instagram and Threads was made because Facebook’s factchecking, brought in December 2016, had done more harm than good in terms of public trust. “The recent elections also feel like a cultural tipping point towards, once again, prioritizing speech,” Zuckerberg said. “So we’re going to get back to our roots and focus on reducing mistakes, simplifying our policies and restoring free expression on our platforms.”.
The dispute between the Meta CEO and Biden – who leaves office on 20 January as Donald Trump begins a second presidency – comes as Zuckerberg has, like most tech titans, signaled his willingness to do business with the incoming administration. For Zuckerberg, that includes contributing to Trump’s record-setting second inauguration fund.
Zuckerberg claimed during an episode of The Joe Rogan Experience released on Friday that Biden administration officials had pressured Facebook to remove certain content from the social media platform. In a letter last year to Jim Jordan, the Republican chairperson of the US House judiciary committee, Zuckerberg said that the White House “repeatedly pressured” Facebook to remove “certain Covid-19 content including humor and satire”.
