Biden slams Meta’s decision to get rid of fact-checking in wide-ranging Q-and-A with reporters

President Joe Biden said Friday that Meta’s decision to get rid of fact checkers and replace them with user-generated community notes is “really shameful” as he answered questions from reporters on a number of subjects following a speech on the economy.

President Joe Biden said Friday that Meta’s decision to get rid of fact checkers and replace them with user-generated community notes is “really shameful” as he answered questions from reporters on a number of subjects following a speech on the economy. Biden appeared in the Roosevelt Room Friday evening to tout the latest jobs report and marking four years of continuous job growth under his administration. It was after that speech that the president took questions on Meta’s decision to get rid of fact checking, his post-presidency plans, new sanctions on Russia, possible pardons he may issue before his term is up in a week and a half, and Vice President Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign, among other topics. As part of the question-and-answer session, Biden was asked about the changes to Meta’s fact-checking process, announced by CEO Mark Zuckerberg just before President-elect Donald Trump takes office. Trump and other Republicans have lambasted Zuckerberg and Meta for what they view as censorship of right-wing voices. Zuckerberg, however, acknowledged a “tradeoff” in the new policy, noting more harmful content will appear on the platform as a result of the content moderation changes. “The idea that, you know, a billionaire can buy something and say, ‘By the way, from this point on, we’re not going to we’re not going to fact check anything.’ And you know, when you have millions of people reading, going online, reading this stuff … I think it’s really shameful,” Biden said. The moderation changes mark a stunning reversal in how Meta handles false and misleading claims on its platforms. In 2016, the company launched an independent fact-checking program, in the wake of claims that it had failed to stop foreign actors from leveraging its platforms to spread disinformation and sow discord among Americans. In the years since, it continued to grapple with the spread of controversial content on its platform, such as misinformation about elections, anti-vaccination stories, violence and hate speech. But now, Zuckerberg is following in the footsteps of fellow social media leader Elon Musk who, after acquiring X, then known as Twitter, in 2022, dismantled the company’s fact-checking teams and made user-generated context labels, called “community notes,” the platform’s only method of correcting false claims.