Meta Changes Its Fact-Checking. Will This Hurt App Integrity?

Story by Abdoul-Kader Harakoye. Photo courtesy of Climate Action for Lifelong Learners.

Fact-checking is an important part of social media these days because it plays a huge role in preventing misinformation and false claims being made on apps like Instagram, Facebook, X (formally known as Twitter), and TikTok. Most of the time, this widespread misinformation is believed by some users, which can cause a wildfire spread of false information.

Meta, which is owned by Mark Zuckerberg and controls many apps like Facebook, and Instagram, is attempting to change its fact-checking program, which is used across all Meta-owned platforms to prevent false information from going around. In exchange for removing its fact-checking program, Mark Zuckerberg wants to have a user-driven system similar to Elon Musk’s community notes feature in X, formerly known as Twitter.

In response to this decision, former president Joe Biden called the move, according to NBC News, “really shameful,” and also said, “You have millions of people reading, going online, reading this stuff. We’ve got to deal with this misinformation. There are hurricane-force winds of disinformation. Lies.” 

Not addressing misinformation online encourages distrust and confusion towards factual and essential information. To protect ourselves from this happening, we should always do our research instead of believing whatever we see on the internet.

Abdoul-Kader Harakoye is an 8th grade scholar at Friendship Woodridge International School.