The fallout of Meta’s content moderation overhaul

Meta is making sweeping changes to its content moderation policies, including abandoning third-party fact-checks in favor of X’s crowd-sourced “Community Notes” approach and loosening restrictions on topics like immigration and gender identity. Under the updated Hateful Conduct policy, for example, calling gay and trans people “mentally ill” is now allowed, while an explicit ban on referring to women as “household objects” has been removed.

Policy chief Joel Kaplan says that in pursuit of “More Speech and Fewer Mistakes,” Meta will focus more on preventing overenforcement of its content policies and less on mediating potentially harmful — but technically legal — discussions on its platform. The company is also ending its diversity, equity, and inclusion programs.

CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s announcement appeals to many of the new administration’s talking points. Zuckerberg, who has visited Trump at Mar-a-Lago multiple times since the election and attended the inauguration, has promised to move US content review from California to Texas, where he says there’s “less concern about the bias of our teams.” He also says Meta will work with Trump to “push back on governments around the world that are going after American companies and pushing to censor more.”

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• Mark Zuckerberg headed up the small team that rewrote Meta’s speech policies.
• Mark Zuckerberg is on Joe Rogan’s podcast to close out the week.
• Meta disbands diversity team and says DEI has become ‘charged’
• Meta gets specific about what type of hate speech it’s OK with.
• “It’s total chaos internally at Meta right now.”
• Meta is highlighting a splintering global approach to online speech
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• Mark Zuckerberg is in Threads replies defending his content moderation changes.
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• Meta is leaving its users to wade through hate and disinformation
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• Trump says his threats “probably” made Meta change its policies.
• Zuckerberg says he’s moving Meta moderators to Texas because California seems too ‘biased’
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• Meta abandons fact-checking on Facebook and Instagram in favor of Community Notes
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