American company Meta will “for the time being” continue to use fact-checkers outside the US, while the practice has been ended in the United States. American news agency Bloomberg has given this news In reference to the statements of Nicola Mendelsohn, Meta’s head of global trading. In an interview with Bloomberg Television at the World Economic Forum in Davos on Monday, Mendelsohn said he would first wait to see how the changing practice plays out in the United States. “Nothing is changing in the rest of the world at this time, we are still working with fact-checkers around the world,” he said.
Advertisement
At the beginning of the year, the parent company of popular social networks like Facebook and Instagram announced that it would end its cooperation with independent fact checkers. Instead, Meta will introduce a form of community notes based on X for its platform. Therefore users must evaluate the content themselves. Meta boss Mark Zuckerberg justified the controversial decision, saying, “Fact checkers were too politically biased and, at least in the United States, they destroyed more trust than they built.” , Meta had previously introduced fact-checking over the years in response to criticism of the spread of misinformation on its platforms.
Obstacles to ending fact checking in the EU
According to Bloomberg, outside the US, Meta may face obstacles in eliminating fact-checkers, particularly in the European Union (EU), where strict laws such as the Digital Services Act (DSA) regulate what it does. How digital services deal with illegal content and misinformation. Under the DSA, the EU requires major platforms to proactively investigate fraudulent political content and disinformation; Otherwise they risk facing heavy fines.
Criticizing the EU’s strict regulations, Zuckerberg said, “Europe has more and more laws that institutionalize censorship and make it difficult to create anything innovative there.” The EU Technical Commissioner defended himself against the accusation. Hanna Virkkunen, the EU Commission vice-president responsible for technological sovereignty and democracy, refuted that DSA does not lead to censorship.
(AKN)
