Did you know Meta’s Decision to Scale Back Content Moderation Was The Correct One, Mark Zuckerberg Says

 

Meta’s CEO is sticking to his guns and defending the company’s major decision of scaling back its content moderation system.

The news brought about a huge wave of controversy with many wondering if that indeed was the right way to go about the situation. Speaking through Joe Rogan Experience, Zuckerberg adds that he did face immense criticism. This was not only from the general public but his own internal workforce who felt it was not right.

Zuckerberg mentioned how the matter depends on how people perceive it. For those still wondering what we’re talking about, Meta announced a series of important updates this week. He shared how it was time to end independent programs for fact-checking. Instead, they would experiment with a method that is long familiar to X called Community Notes.

Now, instead of internal fact checkers doing the work, it would come from members of the community who would be responsible for flagging any kind of misinformation. The purpose of this was to enhance thresholds for content filters working automatically.

The disadvantage here is that fewer bad posts on Meta would be taken down automatically but the advantage had to do with fewer good posts being removed which would be a relief for many creators. They keep on giving Meta feedback about content that they felt was wrongly flagged as misinformation.

Zuckerberg’s entire concept of explanation here had to do with taking a step back from social media apps and just letting them be free in terms of expression. He called it a means to go back to your roots where people got their voices back.

Now the timing of all these decisions cannot be ignored. It comes right before new President-elect Donald Trump is set to take center stage in the White House. In the past, Meta’s CEO was accused by Trump of making plots and plans to prevent him from getting re-elected in 2020. If that was not harsh enough, he threatened to put him in jail if he tried to do something like this again.

Despite all that went down, Zuckerberg shared his two cents on the matter. He felt that Trump was great for the country as a whole. He wants the US to win and for that, you need the right administration which he feels can happen with Trump in charge. Only then can tech firms flourish locally and globally. This was a clear hint at the way Meta continues to face scrutiny in the EU.

The Meta CEO failed to link the timing of all these changes to Trump’s entry, adding how it was all just a coincidence but we need to rethink that. Then came a very interesting conversation about vaccines and how Meta had to deal with a lot of pressure from the Biden administration on this topic. They pressured him into taking real facts down and that was a very intimidating situation, he feels.

Zuckerberg admitted his defeat in terms of content moderation of the past and how Twitter did a much better job at that. However, he feels confident that adopting the latest community notes option is the right way to go about the situation. This might make some happy but others like advertisers might not like it. But again, there’s always someone who leaves upset somewhere, right?

Zuckerberg concluded by stating that a lot of people do put pressure on him and the company. With the right government leading the country, this situation can be handled so much better, he shared.