Statement on Meta’s Announcement to Gut Moderation and Fact-checking

Mark Zuckerberg says that he will roll back “censorship” on Meta platforms. In fact, the changes will lead to the opposite. They may have severe consequences for users in the EU as well. Do the European Commission and Member States just have to put up with this, or do they have options to counter these developments?

The three billion people who use Meta platforms deserve access to reliable information, and to participate in discussions while being protected against hate and harassment. But the changes are designed to please just Donald Trump and his most hardcore supporters. Any illusions of balance or care have given way to clear one-sidedness. It is a reminder of how our information space – which underpins our democracies and societal conversations – is so strongly in the hands of a few unaccountable individuals who can make such blatantly self-interested decisions. Unfortunately, it is unclear how the EU can respond to such developments, as we will explain shortly.

Free expression is a complex balance. It requires the ability to share and receive pluralistic views but also to do so with protection from attacks. Positive, democratic discourse is not helped by enabling people to share lies, harass others, or take advantage of insufficient safeguards and conduct influence operations. Fact-checking and moderation need not lead to take-downs but to measures such as labeling incorrect statements and boosting reliable, positive information. The best approaches combine technical methods, working with experts, effective reporting mechanisms for users, and sufficient staff. Zuckerberg knows all this – his claims of “censorship” are oversimplified to appeal to a pro-Trump audience.

Platforms can, wittingly or unwittingly, boost one side – Facebook itself has seen disproportionate engagement with pro-Trump influencers (even if they claim they are always “censored”), and more recently has admitted errors which led to them hiding pro-LBGT+ content. If Zuckerberg really believed that mistakes were so damaging to freedom of expression, he would not have gutted his Trust and Safety teams – who help to address errors – in favor of spending on the Metaverse and AI.  And he certainly would not be taking the simplistic and one-sided actions he is now proposing.

Risks to information: What could the EU do?

The changes will make it harder to get reliable information on Meta platforms. Fact-checkers will be removed and replaced with a user-driven Community Notes system copied from X. This will be slower in fast-moving situations, and replace expert analysis with armchair “expertise” and collaborative voting. But if that means lies like the 2020 election steal or Haitians eating pets can spread more easily and lead to even more violence, at least Trump may be happy.

It is not entirely clear how the EU can respond to this if these changes – at present just in the USA – will be mirrored in the EU. The EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA) mandates that platforms mitigate systemic risks including impacts on civic discourse, public safety, and fundamental rights. Cutting fact-checkers and taking a permissive stance on views about minority groups – which will almost certainly facilitate disinformation and harassment campaigns – may increase such risks. The effectiveness of a Community Notes system has already been criticized by the EU Commission in their formal proceedings against X.

But Zuckerberg could, as X did in their own risk assessment report last year, argue that these steps are minimizing risks to freedom of expression – which is also important under the DSA. It is still not clear how the EU envisages addressing this balance between conflicting risks, and they will need to tread carefully. The DSA is designed to address the processes and transparency of social media platforms. Zuckerberg is being transparent about the changes, and clearly laying out new processes that Meta will follow. The DSA – quite rightly – does not dictate what content platforms must or must not carry (outside of illegal content). The design and implementation of the DSA has been generally careful to avoid being seen as supporting one set of political views. Evidently, Zuckerberg and others are keen to amplify the opposite message, even when not fully accurate.

The major ongoing question is: What if platforms simply refuse to comply with any EU laws? How strong a punishment will the EU be willing to levy, given the risks of upsetting the US government? Such serious decisions may be coming faster than the EU previously anticipated.

Zuckerberg’s one-sided “free speech”

Zuckerberg claims he wants to address perceptions of bias. To do so, he is moving the US trust and safety and content moderation teams out of California. According to Zuckerberg’s logic, they should be in a more “neutral” state, or perhaps spread across multiple states. Still, he has chosen the traditionally Republican Texas – a state which tried to pass an “anti-censorship” law compelling platforms to carry certain kinds of speech, which the Supreme Court said “rested on a serious misunderstanding of the First Amendment.” Zuckerberg does not seem concerned about this attempt at government interference. The move is clearly intended to send a message to one side.

Zuckerberg is aligning with people who do not support free speech – quite the reverse. Elon Musk has facilitated authoritarian censorship in India and Turkey (and stopped reporting data that helps track government requests for censorship), seemingly introduced political bias into X's algorithms, and tried to sue critical organizations into silence (multiple times). U.S. Congressman Jim Jordan has attacked companies for their free choice not to advertise on right-wing platforms. Trump himself has said Zuckerberg should be in jail for how he runs his platform. These people cry “free speech” only when it supports their political views, and attack it when it does not. 

Real free expression is a balance – creating a space where many voices all get a fair hearing and a fair audience. Zuckerberg has clearly shown he does not want balance. He only wants to please one side.