Mark Zuckerberg's Meta makeover: MAGA grandpa is about to get much worse

[marmar]

Mark Zuckerberg's Meta makeover: MAGA grandpa is about to get much worse
Facebook ditches its fact-checking program in favor of Elon Musk's army of disinformation zombies

By Amanda Marcotte
Senior Writer
Published January 8, 2025 6:00AM (EST)


(Salon) In part because of his goofy appearance and in part because he doesn't engage in fascist trolling like fellow billionaire Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg is rarely seen as a sinister character in modern American life. But Zuckerberg's announcement that Facebook and Instagram will soon cease fact-checking is such a stellar model of villainous doublespeak that George Orwell would have thought it was a bit much. Zuckerberg insisted it's in the name of "free speech" that he must unleash uncontrolled disinformation on his platform, adding, "The recent elections also feel like a cultural tipping point towards, once again, prioritizing speech."

Yep, he is saying Donald Trump is a "free speech" champion, saying the company plans to "work with President Trump" in what sounds very much like bullying countries that have more stringent laws banning false information and hate speech. Of course, Trump is a stalwart enemy of free speech and the First Amendment. Trump has repeatedly threatened to imprison journalists or use government power to shut down news organizations that publish unflattering information about him. The president-elect routinely uses baseless defamation lawsuits to punish journalists for reporting his actions. He has repeatedly called for throwing people in prison for criticizing right-wing judges. But, as the Atlantic's Adam Serwer said on Bluesky, the right's definition of "free speech" is "conservatives being able to say nasty things about people without those people being able to respond."

Instead of using professional fact-checkers, parent company Meta will copy X's "community notes" model. This feature allows people to attach "corrections" to tweets they believe contain false information. If enough people do this, the community note will appear on the original post. X's owner, Musk, claims the notes are "the best source of truth on the internet." Like much of what Musk says, this is not true. A Washington Post report on the program published in October shows it "does a poor job of responding to falsehoods relating to politics," because people who post factual corrections are challenged by those who defend the original lie. The researchers found that accurate community notes only survived downvoting by trolls 9% of the time.

....(snip)....

Whatever Zuckerberg's motives, this move will have ramifications far beyond making Facebook, which is already a miserable platform, even more unusable. There will be an immediate effect, which is that the already voluminous amount of MAGA disinformation on the network will grow. But this is much worse than having to deal with MAGA grandpa sharing more fake stories about "migrant crime." By so publicly affirming the Trumpian belief that facts don't matter and that "truth" is whatever MAGA says it is, Zuckerberg has offered even more permission to ordinary Republicans to lie shamelessly and spread obviously false conspiracy theories. ..................(more)

https://www.salon.com/2025/01/08/mark-zuckerbergs-meta-makeover-maga-grandpa-is-about-to-get-much-worse/

[IronLionZion]

1. As the people who "do their own research" on social media die off

we might become stronger as a society?

[SergeStorms]

2. It'll only make the mad-dog liars.....

more brave and prolific.

There is every reason to worry. Everything is completely out of control.

[travelingthrulife]

4. Lots of them are young so I doubt it.

[FakeNoose]

3. The Russian trolls will be all over Facebook, there's nothing to stop them now

This is why we can't have anything nice!