Major change to Facebook and Instagram as Mark Zuckerberg ‘excited to take’ new opportunity

A major change is coming to Facebook and Instagram after CEO Mark Zuckerberg made an announcement via his own Insta account today (January 7). The billionaire businessman has said trust had been “destroyed” on his social media platforms.

Appearing in a video, the 40-year-old said they would be scrapping independent fact-checkers saying they were “too politically biased” and had “destroyed more trust than they have created”. The verifying process will instead be replaced by “community notes”.

The Meta mogul said: “We’re going to get rid of fact-checkers and replace them with community notes similar to X, starting in the US… The fact-checkers have just been too politically biased and have destroyed more trust than they have created – especially in the US. Over the next couple of months, we’re going to phase in a more comprehensive community notes system.”

Zuckerberg also spoke about working more closely with the US government while slamming other parts of the world, including Europe and South America. He said: “The US has the strongest constitutional protections for free expression in the world.

“Europe has an ever-increasing number of laws institutionalising censorship and making it difficult to build anything innovative there. Latin American countries have secret courts that can order companies to quietly take things down. China has censored our apps from even working in the country.

"The only way we can push back on this global trend is with the support of the US Government. And that’s why it’s been so difficult over the past four years when even the US Government has pushed for censorship. By going after us and other American companies, it has emboldened other governments to go even further.

"But now, we have the opportunity to resort to free expression, and I am excited to take it."

The Meta boss has also announced plans to “simplify” content policies and to “get rid of a bunch of restrictions on topics, like immigration and gender that are just out of touch with mainstream discourse.”