Don't always believe anything you see or read online, except for this
A Student opening Instagram (Maya Ferrari/The Puma Prensa)
Written By: Maya Ferrari, Opinion Editor
On Tuesday, January 7, 2025, Mark Zuckerberg announced that Meta- the owner of apps such as Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp- is removing its prior fact-checking program.
As teenagers, this might seem like a boring or rather useless piece of information; however, this action will likely affect the social media apps that we use daily. Instagram is one of the most prevalent apps in our teenage society, and Meta owns it.
In 2016, Meta implemented professional fact-checking into its app’s systems. This was meant to clarify potentially misleading or misinformed posts. Before this implementation, Donald Trump was elected president the same year. Many believe that the fact-checking system was in response to this significant controversial event. Having a third party check facts seemed a good idea, but it had many unexpected effects. In his article on Metas website, Chief Global Affairs Officer at Meta Joel Kaplan, states that every fact-checker is a person who has their own biases and opinions. No matter what, biases are highly likely to affect things like this. They have the power to choose what is fact-checked and how. Zuckerberg agrees that this seems like a slight violation of free speech. This is an excellent representation of the standard issue over the balance of freedom and order.
Due to the increased complexity of content-regulating systems, Meta has limited valid political debates that don’t all require content management. Meta even announced that around one to two out of ten posts they would take down within these systems were mistakes. They will stop censoring topics discussing immigration, gender identity, and more. This is a controversial decision as many people argue that this freedom will only lead to more hate speech, while others think it creates a valid platform for debate. To avoid any harmful issues or posts being spread, they will rely on a self-reporting system from the consumers themselves. This will allow Meta to remove a post if it has been reported as harmful or a severe violation.
This also significantly affects the fact-checking companies that Meta used to work with. Because of its size and worth, losing Meta as a client will affect these companies' revenue. There is debate over whether these fact-checkers restrict or exercise their freedom of speech. Many argue that regulating inappropriate and hurtful content is not censorship at all but is a further use of free speech. Senior at Maria Carrillo High School, Shane Swanson states that he did not previously know about the fact-checking program, and most of his friends did not either. These programs “are not a defiance of free speech, but I can see where some may think it is,” Swanson explains. They are also implementing what they call “Community Notes.” If you are familiar with app X, you probably know what it entails. If not, users with various ideals and beliefs must agree when rating or commenting on a post to prevent bias. These notes can also be used to add context to possibly misleading posts to avoid any misinterpretations.
Although there's no guaranteed outcome of this removal, many people believe that removing fact-checking programs will increase the spread of misinformation. This is a valid assumption, as all posts are allowed up, and even though the community notes exist, many will only view the post at its surface level. “The increased spread of misinformation is scary,” Swanson explains, “so we have to ensure we aren't getting our important information from just one person's post.”
Meta removing their fact-checkers has many possible outcomes, but only time will reveal what will happen.