Mark Zuckerberg has recently expressed admiration for Elon Musk’s Community Notes system, acknowledging its effectiveness in tackling misinformation. During a Meta earnings call, Zuckerberg admitted that X’s crowdsourced approach to content moderation has outperformed Meta’s previous reliance on third-party fact-checkers.
Despite past disagreements, Zuckerberg and Musk seem to share common ground when it comes to fact-checking. The Meta CEO justified his company’s shift towards a similar crowdsourced model, explaining that X’s approach—where users add context to posts—has proven to be more reliable than traditional fact-checking methods.
Zuckerberg openly acknowledged that when a competitor creates a superior system, it is Meta’s responsibility to adopt and improve upon it. He believes that integrating such a model will lead to better moderation across Meta’s platforms.
Their history of rivalry, including a proposed cage fight in 2023, makes it even more surprising that the two tech moguls are aligned on this issue.
This marks the second time in recent weeks that Zuckerberg has publicly recognised X’s success in content moderation. In a video published on 7 January, he announced that Meta would be phasing out traditional fact-checkers in favour of a Community Notes-style system, mirroring Musk’s approach on X.
Musk seemed pleased with the move, responding on X that he thought it was ‘cool’.
Joel Kaplan, Meta’s chief global affairs officer, echoed Zuckerberg’s sentiments in a blog post, highlighting X’s ability to empower its community to identify and contextualise potentially misleading content. Kaplan noted that involving a diverse range of users in determining the most useful explanations reduces bias in moderation decisions.
Regarding Meta’s upcoming changes, Kaplan explained that the new system would require consensus among users from varied backgrounds and perspectives to ensure fairness—an approach closely mirroring X’s model.
Why did Mark Zuckerberg have a change of heart?
Mark Zuckerberg’s stance on fact-checking has undergone a significant transformation, perhaps influenced by Donald Trump’s political resurgence. In the past, Zuckerberg positioned Meta as a strong advocate for third-party fact-checking, partnering with external organisations to monitor misinformation on the platform. However, after Trump’s electoral comeback, Zuckerberg appeared to shift his approach, recognising that traditional fact-checking had become a polarising issue, particularly in the US. Facing increasing criticism from conservatives who accused Meta of censorship and bias, Zuckerberg gradually distanced himself from fact-checkers, favouring a more decentralised, crowdsourced model akin to Elon Musk’s Community Notes. This change reflects a broader strategic move to appeal to a wider audience while reducing Meta’s direct role in moderating political content.
The Shifting Landscape of Fact-Checking
Over the past decade, fact-checking has become an increasingly controversial practice, evolving into a powerful industry. The backlash against Meta’s decision to abandon traditional fact-checking in favour of Community Notes has been swift, but not unexpected.
Angie Drobnic Holan, director of the International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN) at Poynter, warned that the change could harm Meta’s users by allowing more misinformation to spread unchecked. She argued that traditional fact-checking has been effective in reducing the reach of false information and conspiracy theories.
Neil Brown, president of the Poynter Institute, defended fact-checkers, insisting that they operate without bias. However, a headline in The New York Times—“Meta Says Fact-Checkers Were the Problem. Fact-Checkers Rule That False.”—ironically illustrated the very criticisms aimed at traditional fact-checking methods.
Who Oversees the Moderators?
The debate over fact-checking has been particularly heated in the United States, where critics argue that many mainstream media fact-checkers have leaned towards supporting establishment narratives. The question remains: Who watches the watchdogs?
During the COVID-19 pandemic, mainstream fact-checkers dismissed the lab-leak theory as a baseless conspiracy, only for US government agencies like the Department of Energy and the FBI to later deem it a plausible explanation. Similar backtracking occurred on issues such as natural immunity, mask efficacy, and the potential for vaccinated individuals to spread the virus.
The Future of Online Moderation
While traditional fact-checking once aimed to counter misinformation, critics argue that it eventually became an extension of mainstream media biases. In the US, this has meant intense scrutiny of Republicans while Democratic politicians often received more lenient treatment. For example, Vice President Kamala Harris’s past relationship with politician Willie Brown was once ‘fact-checked’ as merely needing ‘more context,’ despite his role in appointing her to influential positions.
Ultimately, the responsibility of discerning truth will always rest with individuals. As Zuckerberg acknowledged: “Fact-checkers have been too politically biased and have eroded more trust than they have built, particularly in the US.”
The ongoing debate over fact-checking highlights a broader trend: social media is moving away from legacy media’s control over narratives and towards a model where users play a more active role in determining what is factual. While this shift will likely have its challenges, for now, Zuckerberg seems convinced that Musk’s Community Notes model is a step in the right direction.