Huo Jingnan
Appearances
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Is fact-checking "censorship?" Why Meta's changes are a win for conservatives.
You know, after news came out in 2016 after the presidential election that Russia was trying to meddle with American voters, Meta set up this third-party fact-checking program where it pays fact-checkers around the world.
It's Been a Minute
Is fact-checking "censorship?" Why Meta's changes are a win for conservatives.
Fast forward to 2020, during the pandemic, meta was really aggressive in labeling and checking false information about the coronavirus.
It's Been a Minute
Is fact-checking "censorship?" Why Meta's changes are a win for conservatives.
But that all started to change when mostly Republican members of Congress started pressuring Meta for having these kind of communications with the government.
It's Been a Minute
Is fact-checking "censorship?" Why Meta's changes are a win for conservatives.
As this pressure campaign mounted, we see Zuckerberg's attitude changing. He wrote a letter to Jim Jordan, who heads the congressional committee, apologizing for too much counter-moderation during COVID.
It's Been a Minute
Is fact-checking "censorship?" Why Meta's changes are a win for conservatives.
A meta also, right before the 2024 election, sunsetted its tool for researchers to track misinformation called CrowdTangle. And these are all the things that have happened before. It finally did away with fact-checking altogether.
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Is fact-checking "censorship?" Why Meta's changes are a win for conservatives.
It's kind of an interesting contrast on how he seems to be really actively saying yes to the Republicans' frame of narrative when he announced that Meta is going to have all of these changes to counter-moderation and fact-checking. because he is essentially accusing fact-checkers of being part of some kind of censorship machine that is within his own company.
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Is fact-checking "censorship?" Why Meta's changes are a win for conservatives.
And, like, fact checkers that my colleagues and I have talked to were, like, were very bewildered by this accusation because they're like, if Meta wanted to complain, they could have complained, but they never did. So censorship has been this frame that is very, very dominant in the Republican circles. Like, this is the...
It's Been a Minute
Is fact-checking "censorship?" Why Meta's changes are a win for conservatives.
This is the reason that Congressman Jordan is going after all of these researchers and all of these organizations aiming to, you know, add context to curb misinformation. And it seems that Zuckerberg really, really actively embraced it.
It's Been a Minute
Is fact-checking "censorship?" Why Meta's changes are a win for conservatives.
And I just wanted to add some more context when it comes to the role of fact-checkers. Fact-checkers cannot remove content. They just flag content. Is that right? Yeah, they're like tipsters in the company themselves. They make the decisions on what they do with that tip. So a lot of fact-checkers have been telling us that, well, how is adding context to information censorship?
It's Been a Minute
Is fact-checking "censorship?" Why Meta's changes are a win for conservatives.
Because isn't censorship— Removing something.
It's Been a Minute
Is fact-checking "censorship?" Why Meta's changes are a win for conservatives.
Yeah, it can be a little bit too early to tell. I talked to this former Facebook employee who used to work on trust and safety, Katie Harbath, and she said, like, tweaking what users eventually will see, it depends on how exactly Meta tweaks the algorithm. And the announcement provides not... a lot of that kind of detail, like it's maybe too early to tell.
It's Been a Minute
Is fact-checking "censorship?" Why Meta's changes are a win for conservatives.
But she does also say that a bad scenario will be, well, marginalized groups may have to consider whether or not they stay on that platform. Is it worth it?
It's Been a Minute
Is fact-checking "censorship?" Why Meta's changes are a win for conservatives.
Social media has enabled people to have their own bespoke realities. And I think with the like going away of fact checking, it's just like, you know, one step towards like even more bespoke realities, because then you're not going to have a tag telling you to look elsewhere.