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| US President Joe Biden | Photo: Reuters |
US President Joe Biden has strongly criticized Zuckerberg's announcement of the closure of fact-checking or information verification on social media platforms Facebook and Instagram, calling Meta's initiative "truly shameful."
Meta founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced on Tuesday that it would remove fact-checking features from Facebook and Instagram in the United States, alleging that fact-checking programs are leaning too much toward censorship.
Zuckerberg said the Palo Alto company is ending third-party fact-checking in the United States and has handed over the task of exposing false information to ordinary users under a model known as 'Community Notes'.
This model is popular for fact-checking on another social media platform, X. Palo Alto is one of the largest cybersecurity companies in the United States.
Zuckerberg's announcement is being seen by many as an attempt to appease newly elected US President Donald Trump. Trump supporters have long complained that technology platforms are interfering with free speech and blocking the publication of right-wing content in the name of fact-checking. Trump will be sworn in as US president on January 20.
When reporters at the White House on Friday asked Biden about Zuckerberg's announcement, he said, "I think it's very shameful. It's important to tell the truth. Their action is completely contrary to the position of the United States."
On the day of the announcement of the changes to Meta's content editing policy, Zuckerberg said that fact-checkers are politically biased. In addition, fact-checkers are making excessive mistakes and imposing censorship. However, the international fact-checking network has called Zuckerberg's accusation false.
Two days after Zuckerberg's announcement, the International Fact-Checking Network said on Thursday that Meta's fact-checking operations are active in more than 100 countries around the world. If Meta were to shut down its fact-checking operations outside the United States, it would have serious repercussions.
The FactChecking Network also said, "The spread of false information in some of these countries is extremely dangerous. As a result, there may be incidents such as political unrest, election interference, rioting, and genocide."