Meta is making sweeping changes to moderation of their content with the goal of reducing political bias, however critics are pointing out their changes are going to accomplish the opposite.

After the controversial 2016 election of Donald Trump, there were concerns regarding whether Meta, at the time known as Facebook, was doing their part to prevent the spread of fake news after it was revealed Russia was using social media sites such as Facebook to spread misinformation around the election.

To address these concerns, Meta introduced the fact checking system to Facebook. Groups of certified and trusted fact checkers reviewed posts on their site and left comments on certain posts giving warnings about misinformation or giving warnings around dangerous information. Meta had more than 90 fact checking groups employed worldwide, providing their services for other social media sites as well.

Now after eight years of having this service Meta has announced they are completely moving away from the fact checking system and shifting towards a “community notes” system, similar to the system implemented on X. 

This sudden announcement has come as a shock to the fact checkers. Alan Duke, editor in chief and co-founder of fact checking organization lead stories, says they signed a contract to work with Meta throughout 2025 in December only to find out on Jan. 7 the fact checking service would be phased out.

The community notes format is prone to making more frequent and egregious mistakes compared to the current fact checking system. Where fact checkers are trained and vetted, being allowed to suggest community notes has no such prerequisite. This has led to many notes on X that contain incorrect information or are unnecessarily biased and opinionated to serve as useful context for a post.

The timing of this announcement also raises concerns about the motives behind these changes as it comes after Mark Zuckerberg met with Donald Trump at Mar-a-lago in November, two weeks before Trump’s inauguration, and after Trump threatened to arrest Zuckerburg in his “Save America” book. One of these events may be a coincidence, but all of them combined paint the picture that Zuckerberg is bending the knee to Trump.

In a video released on Meta’s website Zuckerberg discusses the various changes that are going to be implemented on social media owned by Meta such as Facebook and Instagram, with the aim of reducing mistakes made by the current moderation systems in place and “restoring free speech” to the platform.

“The problem with complex systems is that they make mistakes. Even if they accidentally censor just 1% of posts, that’s millions of people. And we’ve reached a point where it’s just too many mistakes and too much censorship,” states Zuckerberg in his announcement video.

These motives sound noble on paper, but the actions don’t line up with the goals Zuckerberg says he’s going for. For example, moving their Trust and Safety teams and their Content Moderation teams from the politically blue California to the red Texas doesn’t address the concern of political bias in teams based on location. If any change occurs it would be that the bias in the team would skew more towards the right. 

The most alarming changes announced were regarding their content policies. Zuckerberg describes the changes as simplifying their policies that are currently out of touch with current mainstream discourse, and are used to shut down and silence opposing voices. 

Zuckerberg mentioned changing immigration and gender related policies, but did not elaborate on what exact changes were made. Checking the actual changes reveals why he avoided specifics, which were revealed to allow for more bigoted behavior to be permissible on the platform. Changes that include allowing queer folk to be called mentally ill, advocacy for sex and gender based exclusion, and exclusionary language towards immigrants.

A scary precedent is being set, one of the largest social media companies in the world is making their platforms more dangerous for marginalized groups to be on, in order to appease the threats of Donald Trump.

As social media companies roll back protections towards marginalized groups and the truth, it’ll be increasingly vital to be more critical of the content one sees online. Media literacy is important for being able to think critically about the purpose of content you see online and how to interpret it. Misinformation spreads quicker than the truth, and until these companies do their part again in combating it, it will be up to American consumers to be able to think twice about what they read online.