Meta is making some changes to how it deals with misinformation on Facebook Instagram and Threads. Instead of using professional fact-checkers, they will let users flag posts they think might not be true. This is similar to how X which used to be Twitter does it and Meta says it’s all about helping people share their thoughts more freely. This new approach will be used everywhere across all of Meta’s apps.
This new way of doing things has raised some concerns for people. Because everyone’s view is different it could make people argue more and some people might try to take advantage of the system. This is happening at a time when people already disagree a lot on different topics and social media seems to make it worse. By having less people actively checking to see what is true it might make it harder to tell what is real.
Some people are worried that getting rid of fact-checkers could mean we’ll see more false information online. They say that user feedback can be unreliable and could be used to push certain points of view. They think that letting users decide what’s true might allow people to manipulate stories and keep certain opinions from being heard. This change puts the responsibility on users to figure out the truth while making it harder to stop bad information from spreading.