This 180-degree change is a response to President Donald Trump’s impending second term and competitive methods such as X’s Community Notes. Meta has decided not to invest any more money into its program. Now, the company wants Facebook and Instagram users to decide for themselves what content is or is not disinformation.
In a statement announcing the program’s demise, Zuckerberg said fact checkers had bowed to political bias and destroyed more trust than they had built in the United States. But for Laura Sommer, former director of Chequeado (one of the most important verification organizations in the Spanish-speaking world) and LatamChequea, and current leader of Factchequeado (verification media targeting the Latinx community in the United States), , Zuckerberg’s statement is not surprising. , and there is no scientific evidence for his claims. “Far from censorship, fact checkers add context. We never advocate for the removal of content. We want the public to be better informed to make their own decisions. ,” says Sommer.
Mr. Sommer, who is skeptical about how eliminating the program would benefit Meta, said it would be contradictory for the company to end the fact-checking program, especially since it has emphasized its positive results in the past. Emphasize that there is. Mr. Sommer also echoed the sentiments of Angie Drobnik-Horan, the current director of the IFCN, who wrote in a post on LinkedIn: “This decision has led to extreme criticism from the new administration and its supporters. Under political pressure from It’s a shame that fact-checkers are not biased. Their work – those who feel that their offensive lines must be able to exaggerate or lie without rebuttal or contradiction. It comes from us.”
With President Trump just days away from his inauguration and threatening mass deportations of immigrants, the Hispanic community faces the possibility of a new wave of disinformation. “If you look at the evidence, this is going to be bad. We’ll see until it actually happens, but one of the main disinformation stories within the Trump campaign is against immigrants, including that immigrants commit fraud.” “If we look at historical data, we think this decision is likely to have a negative impact on the Latino community in the United States,” Sommer told WIRED.
It’s not just anti-immigrant rhetoric that is putting ecosystems at risk. In an age of deepfake video and audio fraud, having valid information is a top priority.
Spanish-speaking fact-checking media in crisis
Latin America’s economically fragile news ecosystem is in crisis. “Facebook’s payments to its fact-checker program still kept fact-checking organizations and news organizations with fact-checking departments afloat. So perhaps if these organizations don’t succeed in diversifying soon, many I think the organization will decline, ‘fade away,”’ says Pablo Medina, disinformation research editor at the Latin American Center for Investigative Reporting (CLIP).
Although the decision only applies to the United States for now, the project’s disappearance has caused alarm in the Hispanic media ecosystem. “The attacks that Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has expressed against what he called the ‘secret courts’ (false claims) that facilitate censorship of the platform in Latin America come as a result of Brazil being a major concern of the company. “It shows that it’s a focus,” said Tai Naron, CEO of Meta. Aos Fatos, one of the Global South’s most important fact-checking outlets.
“This is completely consistent with Donald Trump’s rhetoric, which constantly disparages journalism and fact-checking,” Naron said. “Mr. Zuckerberg’s claims are widely used by the far right around the world to delegitimize effective efforts against disinformation.” This seems like a move aimed at political gain, as I have never had any dissatisfaction with the work of fact checkers. Meta is aware that it faces antitrust lawsuits in the United States, and its proximity to the government could be an advantage for the company. ”
Meanwhile, as Laura Sommer says, historical evidence gives the news ecosystem reason for concern.
WIRED en español contacted Meta about this article. The company responded through a media representative with a statement (in Spanish) about the decision, saying that it does not apply to WhatsApp and only applies to U.S. verifiers.
This article originally appeared on WIRED en Español and was translated from Spanish.
