New Delhi: Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has had a rough week. Ahead of Donald Trump’s inauguration as president in the world’s oldest democracy, Zuckerberg managed to upset the world’s largest. First, he disbanded Meta’s fact-check programmes. Then, he got his facts wrong. The irony hasn’t been lost on anyone. From angering scores of social media users to facing summons by an Indian parliamentary panel, the billionaire trumped George Soros in India’s hate-headlines for 48 hours.
Last week, in a video post, Zuckerberg announced that starting in the US, Meta—which owns Facebook, Instagram, and WhatApp—will no longer rely on independent fact-checkers. Instead, it will adopt a system similar to Elon Musk’s X (formerly Twitter), where users can comment on posts to flag inaccuracies or provide context.
The move received severe criticism from disinformation experts, who warned it could lead to a significant increase in misinformation and hate speech on these popular platforms. Days later, during a podcast, Zuckerberg claimed that several governments, including India’s, lost power in elections held after the Covid-19 pandemic—misinformation for which Meta had to issue an apology.
That is why Mark Zuckerberg is ThePrint’s Newsmaker of the Week.
Meta apology, return to roots
On the podcast, the Facebook founder said, “There is some sort of global phenomena, whether it was inflation because of the economic policies to deal with Covid or just how the governments dealt with Covid, seems to have this effect that is global, not just the US, but like a very broad decrease in trust, at least in the set incumbents and maybe, in sort of these democratic institutions overall.”
This comment did not sit well with the Indian government. Union Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw posted on X, “As the world’s largest democracy, India conducted the 2024 elections with over 640 million voters. People of India reaffirmed their trust in NDA led by PM @narendramodi Ji’s leadership.”
The minister clarified that Zuckerberg’s claim was factually incorrect. “@Meta, it’s disappointing to see misinformation from Mr. Zuckerberg himself. Let’s uphold facts and credibility,” Vaishnaw added.
Following the minister’s post, Meta apologised for the “inadvertent error”. Replying on X, Meta’s vice president of public policy for India and South Asia, Shivanth Thukral, wrote, “Dear Honourable Minister @AshwiniVaishnaw, Mark’s observation that many incumbent parties were not re-elected in 2024 elections holds true for several countries, BUT not India. We would like to apologise for this inadvertent error. India remains an incredibly important country for @Meta and we look forward to being at the heart of its innovative future.”
In a video release on 7 January, Zuckerberg announced plans to “get back to our roots around free expression” and outlined changes, including the removal of fact-checkers who, he said, were “too politically biased and have destroyed more trust than they created, especially in the US”. Meta will allow more speech by easing restrictions on mainstream topics like immigration and gender while focusing enforcement on illegal and high-severity violations. Additionally, the company will take a personalised approach to political content, giving users the choice to see more of it in their feeds.
Under its Third-Party Fact-Checking Program, Meta partnered with independent, IFCN-certified fact-checkers in various countries, including India. These fact checkers reviewed and rated viral misinformation across Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp.
Meta’s X route
The announcement is widely seen as an effort to improve relations with the incoming US President Donald Trump. Meta plans to transition to a “Community Notes” system similar to the one on X, owned by Elon Musk, a Trump supporter.
Meta has also announced plans to end several internal programmes designed to increase diverse hiring. It has reportedly disbanded its Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) team and plans to stop providing tampons and sanitary pads in men’s bathrooms at its offices.
Media reports indicate that users unhappy with Meta’s new policies are considering boycotting Facebook and Instagram. Google searches for “delete Facebook” have reportedly surged.
Responding to the backlash, Zuckerberg said, “Some people may leave our platforms for virtue signalling, but I think the vast majority, and many new users, will find that these changes make the products better.”
On the Joe Rogan podcast, Zuckerberg also criticised “culturally neutered” companies for distancing themselves from “masculine energy.” He said, “Masculine energy I think, is good, and obviously society has plenty of that, but I think that corporate culture was really trying to get away from it.”
Zuckerberg’s recent actions and statements have reignited debates on misinformation and content moderation in the digital space. Experts argue that the Community Notes initiative is unlikely to serve as a robust alternative to proactive moderation. Without strong safeguards, harmful content and biased political narratives could flood the platform.
(Edited by Prashant)
Mark Zuckerberg took the correct decision.
These “independent” fact-checkers were never really independent to begin with. Almost all of them owed allegiance to the Democrats and an overwhelming majority of them were part of the woke non-sense going on in developed nations. These were Left-liberals with grossly misplaced, and at times idiotic, ideas such as allowing transgender athletes to participate in women’s sports competitions. Almost all of these so called “independent” fact-checkers took action against anything and everything posted on social media by the center-right or right-wing political parties across the world. While they let the center-left and extreme left get away scot-free with massive scale disinformation campaigns.
Zuckerberg is intelligent enough to realize this. One would have to be an ostrich with it’s head buried in the sand to miss this clear pattern.
The same problem manifests itself in Wikipedia too. The editors and content moderators are of the center-left or extreme-left ideology. Hence, Wikipedia articles reflect an open bias, bordering on hostility, towards the right-wing stance when dealing with sensitive political topics. Examples would be the Wikipedia pages on Narendra Modi or the BJP or the RSS.
DEI is just an idiotic idea. A bunch of not-so-bright low-IQ people, usually from the humanities and social sciences, are the chief advocates of this buffoonery. Quite unfortunately, most tech companies, utterly afraid of being politically incorrect and falling foul of the ultra-vocal Left loonies, have fallen for such ridiculous ideas.
Tampons and sanitary pads in men’s bathroom? That’s disgusting.