
Joe Biden calls Meta’s blow to data verification “shameful”
Meta’s controversial decision to replace fact-checking with community notes (in line with what is already done currently in X) continues to fuel the debate (of a rather high-sounding nature) and prompting sharp criticism against the company run by Mark Zuckerberg.
President Joe Biden has been particularly critical in this regard. In the opinion of the current tenant of the White House, the elimination of “fact-checking” within Meta goes against everything that makes the United States a great country.
“I think it’s really embarrassing.“Biden said last Friday when journalists asked him directly about this issue at the White House. 2Telling the truth is important. And we want to tell the truth,” said the US president.
Last Tuesday Mark Zuckerberg announced that Meta would end its “fact-checking” program in the United States (precisely when the North American country is on the verge of a change of Government). Zuckerberg justified the decision on the grounds that “the ‘fact-checkers’ were simply too politicized” and would have contributed to destroying trust in Meta more than strengthening it. The CEO of Meta also went so far as to label as censorship the work carried out by the “fact-checking” organizations with which Meta collaborated until very recently in the United States.
In this way, Zuckerberg endorsed the rhetoric usually used by Donald Trump, which in the past has repeatedly accused Meta and its CEO of censoring conservative politicians on Facebook and Instagram.
Meta’s decision to shelve its data verification program has given rise to multiple criticisms
The fact that Zuckerberg has accused organizations specializing in fact-checking of censorship has unleashed particularly fierce criticism against the CEO of Meta. The international fact-checking network IFCN (International Fact-Checking Network) and also the UN, among other organizations, have flatly rejected the accusations. The IFCN has specifically warned of the danger if Meta decided to shelve its verification program also in countries other than the United States. “If Meta decides to stop the program worldwide, it will almost certainly cause real harm in many places,” the organization adds. “Some countries are very vulnerable to disinformation, which fuels political instability, electoral interference, popular violence and even genocide,” emphasizes the IFCN.
More than 80 organizations are currently working around the world on behalf of Meta on fact-checking Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp.
Beyond the seas, “fact-checking” will be replaced by community notesby virtue of which it is the users themselves who warn of the falsehoods disseminated through the Meta platforms. X, Elon Musk’s social network, one of Donald Trump’s firmer acolytes, also uses a similar system for content moderation (which has not prevented the “fake news” from champion of their whaters on this platform).
Just a few days after announcing the end of its data verification program in the United States, Meta has also announced the conclusion of its internal diversity programs. The so-called DEI programs of the American multinational will be discontinued “in light of changes in the legal and political environment,” Meta says in an internal memo. The company will also end a program that favored suppliers that met certain diversity criteria.
The so-called DEI programs (diversity, equality and inclusion) They are designed to guarantee diversity among students and teachers in educational centersparticularly in universities. In recent years, many large companies have also adopted this type of programs in the United States.
For some time now, conservative politicians have been harshly criticizing such programs.among other things, because they would not help overcome divisions, but rather reinforce them.
After Donald Trump’s victory at the polls, several companies based in the United States (Walmart, Ford and Jack Daniel’s, among others) They have also announced the dismantling of their diversity programs.
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