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In another victory for free speech, Meta has announced that Facebook will no longer employ third-party “fact checkers.” Instead, it will adopt a system similar to X’s “community notes” feature:

Meta is ending its fact-checking program in the US and replacing it with a “Community Notes” system similar to that on Elon Musk-owned X, the Facebook parent said on Tuesday.

The Community Notes model will allow users on Meta’s social media sites Facebook, Instagram and Threads to call out posts that are potentially misleading and need more context, rather than placing the responsibility on independent fact checking organizations and experts.

“Experts, like everyone else, have their own biases and perspectives. This showed up in the choices some made about what to fact check and how … A program intended to inform too often became a tool to censor,” Meta said.

Of course, it was always intended as a method of censorship. Mark Zuckerberg and his colleagues have apparently now figured that out. Zuckerberg himself issued a video statement:

“It’s time to get back to our roots around free expression,” Mr. Zuckerberg said. The company’s current fact-checking system, he added, had “reached a point where it’s just too many mistakes and too much censorship.”

The New York Times hates Facebook’s abandonment of “fact checkers,” and attributes it to the incoming Trump administration:

Ever since Mr. Trump’s victory in November, few big companies have worked as overtly to curry favor with the president-elect. In a series of announcements during the presidential transition period, Meta has sharply shifted its strategy in response to what Mr. Zuckerberg called a “cultural tipping point” marked by the election.

Hey, elections have consequences, as someone once said. This change, highlighted by the Times, is also interesting:

The company’s trust and safety and content moderation teams will be moved away from California, with the U.S. content review shifting to Texas, in a move that would “help remove the concern that biased employees are overly censoring content,” Mr. Zuckerberg added.

I don’t know whether Zuckerberg has joined our team, but he definitely has left the left behind.