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Columbia Journalism Review

Columbia Journalism Review

Technology

Technology

Q&A: Lucas Graves on Meta’s Decision to Shut Down Its Global Fact-Checking Program

Columbia Journalism Review
Summary
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75% Informative

Mark Zuckerberg announced January 7 that Meta would be ending its third -party fact-checking program.

The social media giant had donated more than $100 million to 90 independent newsrooms and fact-checkers registered with the International Fact-Checking Network .

The decision came down three weeks before the inauguration of Donald Trump , who has cast Meta as an “enemy of the people”.

Meta is severing its relationship with fact-checkers in the U.S. in order to appease the incoming Trump administration.

Mark Zuckerberg thought that he could protect commercial interests by making this public policy shift.

So far, this only applies to the US , but there's good reason to fear that it's only the first step, and that Meta will eliminate this gradually around the world.

Fact-checkers have never promised to be the answer to online misinformation.

They are held to the standard that other journalists are not held to.

Journalists accept that their work often reaches fewer people than it should, and that it doesn't have the impacts that they hope that it would.