X boss Linda Yaccarino praises Meta’s decision to scrap fact checkers
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The head of X has called Meta’s decision to scrap fact checkers and scale back content moderation in favour of X-style Community Notes “really exciting”. Linda Yaccarino told Mark Zuckerberg “welcome to the party” while speaking during an appearance at the CES technology show in Las Vegas on Tuesday.
Her comments came hours after Meta made the surprise announcement that it was to move away from using third-party fact checkers to flag misleading content in favour of user-based notes, claiming the system amounted to censorship and was riddled with bias.
In a short video from Mr Zuckerberg and supporting blog post from the company, the social media giant said it would also scale back its automated content moderation systems to allow for more free speech on its sites, despite Mr Zuckerberg admitting it would mean the company would “catch less bad stuff”.
The decision has been widely criticised by commentators and online safety campaigners, who warned it would allow misinformation to more easily flow on Meta platforms and leave users more at risk from harmful content. But speaking during during an on-stage Q&A at CES, Ms Yaccarino said: “I think it’s really exciting that when you think about Community Notes being good for the world.
“Think about it as this global collective consciousness, keeping each other accountable at global scale in real time. And it couldn’t be more validating than to see that Mark and Meta realised that. “When you think about Community Notes, Mark and Meta realised that it’s the most effective, fastest fact-checking, without bias… also it inspires great behaviour. Human behaviour is inspired because when a post is noted, it’s dramatically shared less, so that’s the power of Community Notes.”.
