Meta is abandoning the use of third-party fact-checking on Facebook and Instagram and will replace it with X-style “community notes,” where commenting on the accuracy of posts is left to users.
In a video posted to blog post from the company on Tuesday, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said “it's time to get back to our roots around free expression.”
Joel Kaplan who replaces Sir Nick Clegg as Meta's head of global affairs, wrote that the company's reliance on independent moderators was “well-intentioned” but went too far.
“Too much innocuous content is censored,” he wrote, adding that Meta “too often gets in the way of the free expression we seek to allow.”
The move to a community notes system will roll out “in the US first” in the coming months, the tech giant says – it's not clear when or if it will roll out elsewhere.
The system – which Meta says it has seen “working on X” – sees people with different viewpoints agree on notes that add context or clarification to conflicting posts.
The company's blog post said it would also “undo the mission creep” of rules and policies – highlighting the removal of restrictions on topics including “immigration, gender and gender identity” – saying they had caused political discussion and debate.
“We are getting rid of a number of restrictions on topics such as immigration, gender identity and gender that are the subject of frequent political discourse and debate,” it said.
“It's not right that things can be said on television or in Congress but not on our platforms.”
The changes come as tech firms and their executives prepare for the Jan. 20 inauguration of President-elect Donald Trump.
Trump has previously been a vocal critic of Meta and its approach to content moderation.
He called Facebook an “enemy of the people” in March 2024.
But relations between the two men have since improved – Mr Zuckerberg dined at the Trump mansion in Florida in Mar-a-Lago in November.
Meta also donated $1 million to a Trump Inauguration Fund.
“The last election also feels like a cultural tipping point toward, again, prioritizing free speech,” Mr. Zuckerberg said in Tuesday's video.
Mr Kaplan replacing Sir Nick Clegg – a former Liberal Democrat deputy prime minister – as the company's president of global affairs was also interpreted by many analysts as a signal of the firm's changing approach to moderation and its changing political priorities.
In a statement announcing he would step down on January 2, Sir Nick said his successor was “clearly the right person for the right job at the right time”.