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The Guardian - US
The Guardian - US
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Joan Donovan

Meta never cared about factchecking. What it wants is friction-free oligarchy

Meta Donald Trump Elon Musk X Facebook Joel Kaplan Nick Clegg Sheryl Sandberg Instagram MAGA United States
zuckerberg with mic
‘Meta pledged to align moderation policies with ‘mainstream discourse’ on gender and immigration specifically, two issues championed by Trump and Musk.’ Photograph: David Zalubowski/AP

This week Meta announced the elimination of its factchecking program in the US and rollbacks to content moderation policies on “hateful conduct”. These measures undoubtedly open the floodgates to more hateful, harassing and inciting content on Facebook and Instagram. Immigrants and LGBTQ+ communities are two of the groups most likely to be affected.

Last month, after Donald Trump won the election, Zuckerberg visited Trump in Mar-a-Lago and then Meta sent $1m to his inauguration fund. When asked for comment about Meta’s policy changes, Trump admitted that Zuckerberg was “probably” influenced by his threats to imprison the tech CEO.

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