This 180-degree change is a response to Donald Trump's impending second presidential term and the competition's methods, such as X's Community Notes. Meta decided to stop investing money in its program. Now it hopes that Facebook and Instagram users will decide for themselves what content is disinformation or not.
In the statement in which Zuckerberg announced he will dismantle the program, he said fact-checkers have succumbed to political bias, destroying more trust than they created in the US. However, for Laura Zommer, former director of Chequeado (one of the most important Spanish-language verification organizations) and LatamChequea, and now leader of Factchequeado (a verification media aimed at the Latino community in the US), Zuckerberg's statements come as no surprise. , and he has no scientific evidence for his claims. “Instead of censoring, fact checkers add context,” says Zommer. “We never advocate removing content. We want citizens to have better information to make their own decisions.”
Zommer, who is skeptical about how the dissolution of this program could benefit Meta, emphasizes that the company is contradicting itself by ending the fact-checking program, especially since it has emphasized its positive results in the past. Zommer also agrees with Angie Drobnic Holan, the current director of IFCN, who wrote in a LinkedIn post: “It is unfortunate that this decision comes in the wake of extreme political pressure from a new government and its supporters. Fact checkers are not biased in their opinions. their work – that line of attack comes from those who believe they should be able to exaggerate and lie without rebuttal or contradiction.
As Trump, just days away from his inauguration, threatens a mass deportation of migrants, the Hispanic community faces a possible new wave of disinformation. “The evidence makes us think this will be bad. Until it is implemented we will see, but we can say that during the Trump campaign one of the main disinformation stories was against migrants, such as the one claiming that migrants were committing fraud. That was incorrect. Past data leads us to believe that this decision will likely have negative consequences for Latino communities in the US,” Zommer tells WIRED en Español.
Anti-immigrant rhetoric isn't the only thing endangering the ecosystem. At a time when deepfake video and audio fraud is spreading, having actionable information will be a priority.
Spanish-language media that check the facts are in danger
The Latin American news ecosystem, with its economic fragility, is at risk. “The payments from Facebook's fact-checker program still kept fact-checking organizations and news organizations with a fact-checking section afloat. So I think if these organizations don't manage to diversify soon, many of them will. disappear,” said Pablo Medina, disinformation research editor at the Latin American Center for Investigative Journalism, CLIP.
Although the decision only applies to the US for now, the project's disappearance has raised alarms in the Spanish-language media ecosystem. “Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg's attack on what he called 'secret courts' that promote the platform's censorship in Latin America – a false claim – indicates that Brazil is a major focus of the company's concerns,” says Tai Nalon, CEO of Meta. Aos Fatos, one of the leading fact-checking media in the Global South.
“This is completely in line with the rhetoric of Donald Trump, a regular opponent of journalism and fact-checking,” says Nalon. “The arguments used by Zuckerberg have been widely exploited by the far right around the world to delegitimize effective initiatives against disinformation. . Since there has never been dissatisfaction with the work of fact-checkers before, this seems to me to be a move aimed at gaining some political advantage. We know that Meta faces antitrust challenges in the US, and a close relationship with the government could be an advantage for the company.”
In the meantime, as Laura Zomer says, the news ecosystem gives cause for concern from the past.
WIRED en español contacted Meta for this story. Through a media representative, the company responded with the explanation (in Spanish) of the decision, saying that it does not apply to WhatsApp and only to US verifiers.
This story originally appeared on WIRED en Español and has been translated from Spanish.
