type: timeline_event Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced on January 7, 2025, that the company would eliminate its third-party fact-checking program on Facebook and Instagram in the United States, replacing it with a "Community Notes" model similar to the system Twitter/X adopted under Elon Musk. Zuckerberg described the fact-checking program as having become "too politically biased" and framed the change as restoring free expression. The announcement came weeks before Donald Trump's January 20 inauguration, with Trump himself stating that his threats against Meta had "probably" contributed to the policy change.
The fact-checking program, which Meta had implemented in 2016 following criticism of the platform's role in spreading misinformation during that year's election, had enlisted independent organizations to flag false or misleading content on the platform. Under the new Community Notes model, users themselves would flag potentially misleading content, a system that research suggested was significantly less effective at addressing fast-spreading misinformation than professional fact-checkers. Meta simultaneously announced it was ending the diversity, equity, and inclusion programs within the company and relocating its trust and safety team from California to Texas.
The move represented a significant capitulation to conservative political pressure that had characterized Meta's "censorship" as suppressing legitimate political speech. Researchers studying misinformation warned that the change would lead to increased spread of false information on platforms reaching billions of users globally, particularly around health crises, elections, and political events. European officials noted that Meta was not immediately applying the same rollback in the European Union, where the Digital Services Act imposed regulatory requirements for platform content moderation that differed from the U.S. approach. The announcement was widely interpreted as Meta's effort to curry favor with the incoming Trump administration ahead of what the company anticipated would be a more favorable regulatory environment.