(January 7, 2025) — Meta, the parent company of platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Threads, has announced significant changes aimed at restoring its commitment to free expression and addressing growing concerns about excessive content moderation. In a move to reduce censorship and empower users, Meta is overhauling its approach to content regulation, ending its third-party fact-checking program, and introducing a more community-driven content moderation system.
Meta’s shift comes as the company acknowledges that its increasingly complex content management systems, designed in response to political and societal pressures, have resulted in over-enforcement and mistakes. The company admits that its well-intentioned efforts have led to frustrations, with too many users finding their posts wrongly censored or facing unwarranted penalties.
“We have made too many mistakes, frustrating our users, and too often getting in the way of the free expression we set out to enable,” Meta’s leadership stated. “We want to fix that and return to our fundamental commitment to free expression.”
Ending the Third-Party Fact-Checking Program
One of the most notable changes is the end of Meta’s third-party fact-checking program in the United States. Launched in 2016, the program aimed to address misinformation by involving independent fact-checkers. However, Meta acknowledges that this approach has had unintended consequences, often censoring legitimate political discourse and debate.
In place of the current program, Meta will transition to a Community Notes system, which has already been successful on other platforms like X. This system will allow users to write and rate “notes” that provide additional context for potentially misleading content. The goal is to offer users a more balanced perspective, with contributions from a diverse range of viewpoints to prevent bias.
“We think this could be a better way of achieving our original intention of providing people with information about what they’re seeing, and one that’s less prone to bias,” Meta said in its announcement. The new Community Notes system will rely on community contributions and will allow users to sign up to become contributors starting today.
Moving Toward More Free Speech and Less Censorship
Meta also plans to loosen its content moderation policies, focusing more on illegal and high-severity violations such as terrorism and child exploitation. The company will reduce its reliance on automated systems, which have resulted in too many errors, and instead will require users to report violations before taking action on less severe issues.
Additionally, Meta will phase out many of the content demotions currently in place, ensuring that posts are removed only when there is a higher degree of confidence that they violate the platform’s standards.
“We want to undo the mission creep that has made our rules too restrictive and prone to over-enforcement,” Meta stated. “This includes removing restrictions on topics like immigration and gender identity, which are often part of legitimate political discourse.”
A More Personalized Approach to Political Content
Since 2021, Meta has reduced the amount of civic content in users’ feeds based on feedback that people wanted to see less political content. However, Meta now plans to reintroduce political content in a more personalized and user-centric manner. Posts about elections, politics, and social issues will be treated like any other content, with the ability for users to signal their preferences.
“We’re testing a more personalized approach to political content, where users can choose how much of it they want to see,” Meta said. “We’re expanding options for people to control their feeds and recommend content that’s more meaningful to them.”
Moving Forward
As part of these changes, Meta plans to phase out its third-party fact-checking program and transition to the Community Notes system over the coming months. The company is also addressing its content enforcement process to ensure fewer mistakes and greater transparency. Meta is committed to making these changes as part of its renewed focus on free expression, an ideal championed by CEO Mark Zuckerberg since his 2019 speech at Georgetown University.
“We must be vigilant about the impact our policies are having on people’s ability to express themselves and change our approach when we know we’re getting things wrong,” Meta concluded.
These changes are expected to roll out in phases throughout 2025, with Meta promising continuous improvements and updates based on user feedback.
