Losing Meta fact-checkers could ‘undermine public trust’, warns former Guardian editor
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Former Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger and novelist Khaled Mansour have warned that disinformation ‘can very much kill’. Two members of Meta’s independent Oversight Board have warned that misinformation will “undermine public trust”, after the social media giant announced it is planning to ditch fact-checkers.
![[Zuckerberg met with Donald Trump in November]](https://static.independent.co.uk/2025/01/07/13/META-MODERADORES_DE_CONTENIDO_79312.jpg)
Alan Rusbridger, Independent collumnist and former editor of The Guardian, and novelist Khaled Mansour have stressed that the impact on the credibility of sites such as Facebook could be “exorbitant” and could lead to wide civil disturbance. Their comments come after Mark Zuckerberg announced that Meta is to scrap its longstanding fact-checking programme in favour of a community notes system similar to that on Elon Musk’s social media platform X.
Instead of using news organisations or other third-party groups as it does currently, Meta will rely on users to add notes to posts that might be false or misleading. In a move that is widely seen as appeasing Donald Trump, Mr Zuckerberg also met with the incoming president in November after he won the US election.
Writing in The Independent, Mr Rusbridger and Mr Mansour state that the policy change is “anything other than political”, and shows an evident wish to please the new White House. “Misinformation, disinformation and hate speech – including dehuamanisation – can very much kill, as we have seen in Rwanda, Myanmar (Meta was implicated here), and now in Gaza; lead to wide civil disturbance as we have seen in the USA and the UK; or exacerbate conflicts as has been evident in Ethiopia and the Sudan.
