Paris:

Internet giant Meta’s fact-checking programme aims to counter false information on its social platforms — Facebook, Instagram and Threads — with the help of media organisations, including AFP.

Here is a guide to how it works, following Meta chief Mark Zuckerberg’s announcement on January 6 that he was halting the programme in the United States.

Who does fact-checking?

Meta has since 2016 tasked journalists with assessing false information on its platforms under its “third-party fact-checking” programme — which currently has 80 media organisations working on it.

In the United States, for example, Meta has 10 media partners for the programme, including AFP, USA Today and specialist fact-check sites Lead Stories and PolitiFact.

The partners are certified by the International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN), set up in 2015 by the Poynter Institute, a US-based non-profit media training and advocacy group.

To be certified by the IFCN, media organisations must meet its standards of editorial quality, neutrality and independence.

Zuckerberg said he will replace the fact-checks with user-generated “community notes” similar to those used on rival platform X, formerly Twitter, owned by Elon Musk.

What do fact-checkers do?

AFP publishes fact-check articles in 26 languages, aimed at readers of posts published in those tongues.

The articles explain why claims are misleading and provide correct information for readers.

To start their articles, AFP’s 150 fact-checkers identify claims that are misleading, potentially dangerous and circulating widely on the platforms.

They verify facts, not opinions or beliefs.

They do so by assembling concrete evidence that is transparently sourced and cross-checked.

They explain the steps of their investigation and publish weblinks to their sources where possible.

The media organisation that produces a fact-check article publishes it on their own website.

In the case of AFP fact checks published in English, this site is factcheck.afp.com.

How does Meta use fact-checks?

To apply a fact-check to a claim circulating online, the media organisation enters the web address of its article into an interface provided by Meta.

This interface associates the article with the social media post containing the false or misleading information.

This causes the misleading post to become less widely viewed on the social platform and a rating such as “false” or “misleading” to appear alongside the post.

The post is not removed from the platform — instead, a link to the fact-checking article appears under the post, directing readers to the verified information.

Users who have shared the misleading post receive a notification providing them with a link to the fact-check article.

If the author of the post corrects it, the rating is removed and the restriction on how many users see the post is lifted.

When are fact-check articles paid for?

Meta pays the media organisations for publishing the articles that are linked to the misleading posts.

The media organisations may write articles on any subject they choose — even concerning misinformation that is not circulating on Meta’s platforms.

But Meta only pays them for the articles that are linked to specific posts on its platforms.

Meta does not apply ratings or attach fact-checks to posts by political figures.

This does not prevent the media organisations from publishing articles about such posts — as AFP regularly does. But they do not receive payment from Meta for those articles.

Fact-checkers are not to be confused with Meta’s content moderators.

Moderators remove posts that break a platform’s rules, for example ones that feature pornography or racist content, or incite terrorism or violence.
 

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Washington:

There will be “real-world harm” if Meta expands its decision to scrap fact-checking on Facebook and Instagram, a global network warned Thursday while disputing Mark Zuckerberg’s claim such moderation amounts to censorship.

Meta founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s surprise announcement this week to slash content moderation policies in the United States has sparked alarm in countries such as Australia and Brazil.

The tech tycoon said fact-checkers were “too politically biased” and the program had led to “too much censorship”.

But the International Fact-Checking Network, which includes AFP among its dozens of member organizations globally, said the censorship claim was “false”.

“We want to set the record straight, both for today’s context and for the historical record,” said the network.

Facebook pays to use fact checks from around 80 organisations globally on the platform, as well as on WhatsApp and Instagram.

There could be devastating consequences if Meta broadens its policy shift beyond US borders, to programs covering more than 100 countries, the International Fact-Checking Network warned.

“Some of these countries are highly vulnerable to misinformation that spurs political instability, election interference, mob violence and even genocide,” the network said.

“If Meta decides to stop the program worldwide, it is almost certain to result in real-world harm in many places,” it added.

‘Real world consequences’ 

In Geneva Friday, the United Nations rights chief also insisted that regulating harmful content online “is not censorship”.

“Allowing hate speech and harmful content online has real world consequences. Regulating such content is not censorship,” Volker Turk said on X.

AFP currently works in 26 languages with Facebook’s fact-checking scheme.

In that program, content rated “false” is downgraded in news feeds so fewer people will see it and if someone tries to share that post, they are presented with an article explaining why it is misleading.

Supinya Klangnarong, co-founder of Thai fact-checking platform Cofact, said Meta’s decision could have concrete effects offline.

“Understandably this policy from Meta is aimed at US users, but we cannot be certain how it will affect other countries,” she told AFP.

“By allowing the proliferation of hate speech and racist dialogue could be a trigger towards violence.”

Cofact is not an accredited member of the International Fact-Checking Network or of Facebook’s fact-checking scheme.

Zuckerberg courts Trump

Meta’s policy overhaul came less than two weeks before US President-elect Donald Trump takes office and it aligns with the Republican Party’s stance.

Trump has been a harsh critic of Meta and Zuckerberg for years, accusing the company of bias against him and threatening to retaliate against the tech billionaire once back in office.

Zuckerberg has been making efforts to reconcile with Trump since his election in November, meeting at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida and donating one million dollars to his inauguration fund.

The Meta chief also named Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) head Dana White, a close ally of Trump, to the company board.

Angie Drobnic Holan, director of the International Fact-Checking Network, said Tuesday the decision came after “extreme political pressure.”

The move “will hurt social media users who are looking for accurate, reliable information to make decisions about their everyday lives and interactions with friends and family.”

Australia said Meta’s decision was “a very damaging development”, while Brazil warned it was “bad for democracy”.

Meta’s move into fact-checking came in the wake of Trump’s shock election in 2016, which critics said was enabled by rampant disinformation on Facebook and interference by foreign actors, including Russia, on the platform.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

The clean cut hair has grown, his college kid’s hoodie is now a gold chain, and his politics have swerved hard right.

Mark Zuckerberg, the boss of Facebook and Instagram, on Tuesday accused governments and so-called legacy media of pushing censorship, and vowed to take his world-dominating platforms back to their “roots.”

“We’re restoring free expression on our platforms,” he asserted in a video posted on his social networks on Tuesday, in which he announced the end of fact-checking in the US.

The out-of-the blue pivot to Trumpian talking points has perplexed many of Zuckerberg’s closest watchers, but the tech pioneer’s sudden alignment with the right wing is not the first time he has moved to preserve his dominance of social media.

And it also might reflect a position that is closer to his political instincts. Since the earliest days of Facebook, Zuckerberg has always been eager to move unencumbered when it comes to advancing the interests of Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and now Threads.

From the outset Zuckerberg has surrounded himself with Silicon Valley’s libertarian voices, including longtime advisors Peter Thiel and Marc Andreessen, the latter being Meta’s longest-serving board member.

But the success of Facebook as it grew from a college networking site to the world’s primary communication platform quickly brought scandal and forced Zuckerberg to act to fend off government intervention.

Fact-checking and tighter content controls, which Zuckerberg said he was “getting rid of” on Tuesday, were born of such scandals.

After the 2016 US presidential election, widespread criticism about misinformation on the platform, particularly regarding foreign interference and viral false stories, prompted Facebook to implement a fact-checking program.

“The bottom line is: we take misinformation seriously,” Zuckerberg wrote at the time.

This initiative represented a significant shift in Facebook’s approach to content moderation, which had always been an after-thought, or even a source of scorn, for the disruptors of Silicon Valley.

The subsequent Cambridge Analytica scandal in the late 2010s, which revealed the unauthorized harvesting of millions of Facebook users’ personal data, further intensified scrutiny and resulted in Zuckerberg’s being hauled before Congress and a beefing up of Facebook content policies.

‘Kissing the ring’

Since then, Zuckerberg has demonstrated increasing political acumen, managing to avoid significant US government regulation while appearing cooperative with politicians and contrite with an angry public.

And despite the bad headlines, usership of the sites platforms has only increased over the years.

To some Tuesday’s shock announcement is still a play to keep the government at bay, except this time the political tide has turned to Trump, who has made repeated threats against Zuckerberg, accusing him of being too supportive of liberal causes.

“This is a case of kissing the ring,” said tech analyst Carolina Milanesi.

“He’s doing what it takes to make sure that Trump is going to leave him alone.”

A more surprising turn is that his pivot rightwards puts Zuckerberg in line with Elon Musk, who has become a close associate of Trump but is a rival to Zuckerberg.

Quite recently, the two men pledged to fight each other in a mixed martial arts cage fight, as their chest-beating rivalry veered into the ridiculous.

“There is kind of this huge, technocratic billionaire meeting of the minds with Trump and the right, and this buying into this idea of censorship,” Kate Klonick, Associate Professor of Law at St. John’s University Law School, told a Lawfare panel.

Others suggest that Zuckerberg is afraid Musk will get Trump all to himself.

“There’s potentially a bit of billionaire jealousy,” said Andrew Selepak, media professor at the University of Florida.

The stakes are huge, especially as Zuckerberg competes with Musk and other tech giants in advancing artificial intelligence.

But for Selepak, Zuckerberg “seems more sincere” when it comes to Tuesday’s U-turn.

“It looks like he’s making a political shift, a bit like Musk,” who had previously supported Democrats, mainly out of concern about climate change.

(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

Philippine journalist and Nobel laureate Maria Ressa speaks during an interview with AFP in Manila on January 8, 2025.
| Photo Credit: AFP

Philippine Nobel laureate Maria Ressa warned Wednesday (January 8, 2025) of “extremely dangerous times ahead” in an interview with AFP after social media giant Meta ended its U.S. fact-checking program on Facebook and Instagram.

Ms. Ressa and the Rappler news site she co-founded have spent years fighting online disinformation while battling court cases filed under former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte after critical reporting of his deadly drug war.

The veteran journalist and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 2021 said Meta’s decision meant “extremely dangerous times ahead” for journalism, democracy and social media users.

“Mark Zuckerberg says it’s a free speech issue – that’s completely wrong,” Ms. Ressa told AFP at Rappler’s newsroom in Manila.

“Only if you’re profit driven can you claim that; only if you want power and money can you claim that. This is about safety.”

Meta’s announcement on Tuesday (January 7, 2025) was seen by analysts as an attempt by Mr. Zuckerberg to appease U.S. President-elect Donald Trump before his inauguration this month.

Mr. Trump has been a harsh critic of Meta and Zuckerberg for years, accusing the company of bias against him and threatening to retaliate against the tech billionaire once back in office.

Fact-checking and disinformation research have long been a hot-button issue in a hyperpolarised political climate in the United States, with conservative U.S. advocates saying they were a tool to curtail free speech and censor right-wing content.

Ms. Ressa, who is also a U.S. citizen, rejected Mr. Zuckerberg’s assertion that fact-checkers had become “too politically biased” and “destroyed more trust than they’ve created”.

“Journalists have a set of standards and ethics,” Ms. Ressa told AFP. “What Facebook is going to do is get rid of that and then allow lies, anger, fear and hate to infect every single person on the platform,” she said.

Meta’s actions would lead to a “world without facts” and “that’s a world that’s right for a dictator”, Ms. Ressa warned.

“Mark Zuckerberg has ultimate power,” she said, “and he chooses wrongly to prioritise profit, Facebook’s annual profits, over safety of the people on the platforms.”

‘Just the beginning’

Rappler is one of the partners working with Facebook’s fact-checking program.

AFP also currently works in 26 languages with Facebook’s fact-checking program, in which Facebook pays to use fact-checks from around 80 organisations globally on its platform, WhatsApp and on Instagram.

In a statement shared with AFP, Rappler said it intends to continue working with Facebook “to protect fellow Filipinos from manipulation and the dangers of disinformation”.

“What has happened in the U.S. is just the beginning,” Rappler said.

“It is an ominous sign of more perilous times in the fight to preserve and protect our individual agency and shared reality.”

Ms. Ressa has long maintained that the charges against her and Rappler were politically motivated after their critical reporting of the Mr. Duterte government’s policies, including its anti-drugs crackdown that killed thousands of people.

“Mr. Trump, who vowed in his first post-election news conference to “straighten out” the “corrupt” U.S. press, appeared to have taken a page from Mr. Duterte’s playbook,” Ms. Ressa said.

The incoming U.S. president has launched unprecedented lawsuits against newspapers and pollsters that observers worry are the signs of escalating intimidation and censorship tactics.

Ms. Ressa vowed to do everything she could to “ensure information integrity”.

“The Nobel Prize said that you cannot have democracy if you don’t have journalism,” Ms. Ressa said.

“This is a pivotal year for journalism’s survival. We’ll do all we can to make sure that happens,” she said.