Why did Zuckerberg kill fact-checking while continuing to cozy up to Trump?

mark Zuckerberg, Which often bends with the political winds, falls outside the realm of fact-checking.

This is part of a broader effort by Meta's CEO to show off Donald Trump After a long and tense relationship.

After earlier protests, Zuck made a splash by announcing that Facebook would hire fact-checkers to combat misinformation on the world-famous site. That was a clear sign That Facebook It has become more of a journalistic organization than a negative poster for user opinions (and dog photos).

But it didn't work. In fact, this has led to further information suppression and censorship. Why should anyone believe a group of anonymous fact-checkers working for an increasingly unpopular tech giant?

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Along with Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and President-elect Donald Trump. (Getty Images)

Now Zuckerberg is pulling the plug, announcing his decision in a video to underscore its big-ticket nature:

“The problem with complex systems is that they make mistakes. Even if they inadvertently censor only 1% of posts. That means millions of people. We have reached a point where there are too many mistakes and too much censorship. And the recent election feels like a cultural tipping point toward… “Prioritize speech again.”

Let me jump in here. Zuckerberg frankly admits, with this line about a “cultural tipping point,” that he is following conventional wisdom — and of course, the biggest tipping point is Trump’s election to a second term. Skeptics portray this as a bow to the president-elect and his team.

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“So we will go back to our roots and focus on reducing errors, simplifying our policies, and restoring freedom of expression on our platforms…

“We're going to get rid of fact-checkers and replace them with community feedback, which is already in use at

“We tried in good faith to address these concerns without becoming arbiters of truth. But the fact-checkers were too politically biased and destroyed more trust than they created.” “Especially in the United States”

SpaceX and Tesla founder Elon Musk speaks at a town hall with Republican U.S. Senate candidate Dave McCormick at Roxain Theater on October 20, 2024 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. (Michael Swensen/Getty Images)

It was Zuckerberg, along with the previous management at Twitter, who banned Trump after the Capitol riot. This led to a lot of Trumpian attacks on Facebook, and the president-elect told me that he reversed his position on banning TikTok because it would help Facebook, which he saw as the greater threat.

Trump said last summer that Zuckerberg conspired against him in 2020 and would “spend the rest of his life in prison” if he did it again.

The president-elect summed it up in a post: “Zuckerback, don't do it!”

Here's more from Z: “We'll be working to simplify our content policies and get rid of a range of restrictions on topics like immigration and gender that are far removed from mainstream discourse. What started as a movement to be more inclusive has increasingly been used to shut down opinions and alienate people with different ideas,” “It went further than that.”

Indeed it has happened. I agree with that. In 2020, social media, led by Twitter, suppressed a New York Post story on Hunter Biden's laptop, calling it Russian disinformation, although a year and a half later the establishment press suddenly declared that the laptop report was accurate.

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Let's face it: people like Zuckerberg And Elon Musk (Now embroiled in a war of words with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer over the alleged cover-up of gang rapes of young girls while Starmer was chief prosecutor) has enormous influence. They are the new gatekeepers. And as so-called legacy media become less relevant — as we see with the exodus of top talent from Jeff Bezos' Washington Post and the recent rise of podcasts — they dominate much of the public dialogue. And yes, they are private companies that can do whatever they want.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer listens to a speech by British Treasury Secretary Rachel Reeves at the Labor Party conference in Liverpool, England, Monday, September 23, 2024. (AP Photo/John Soper)

At yesterday's marathon press conference, a reporter asked Trump about Zuckerberg: “Do you think he's responding directly to threats you've made against him in the past with promises?”

“Maybe,” Trump said, waving the knife slightly. “Yes, maybe.”

Meanwhile, after making the obligatory trip to Mar-a-Lago for dinner, the CEO took a number of steps to join forces with the new management. And it wouldn't hurt for Meta to get $1 million at Trump's inauguration.

Zook appointed prominent Republican lawyer Joel Kaplan as head of global affairs, replacing the former British deputy prime minister. Kaplan said on Fox & Friends yesterday:

“We have a real opportunity now. We have a new administration and a new president coming in, who are big advocates of free speech, and that makes a difference. One of the things we've seen is that when you have an American president, an administration that is pushing for censorship, it makes it open season on other governments in “All over the world that doesn't even have the protection of the First Amendment to really put pressure on American companies that we're going to work with President Trump to respond to this kind of thing all over the world.”

We will work with President Trump. Did you understand it?

Furthermore, Zuckerberg added Dana White, CEO of United Fighting Championship, to Meta's board of directors. White is a longtime Trump ally, so MAGA now has a voice inside the company.

In other words, get the software.

Footnote: In his press conference, where Trump appeared exasperated by recent court battles and sentencing plans, the incoming president said — or “did not rule out,” in journalistic parlance — “military coercion” against two of his recent targets.

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“Well, we need Greenland for national security purposes,” he said. The Americans lost many lives building the Panama Canal. “Maybe you should do something.”

It will not use military force against either of them. But his answer stirred fate, he knew.