: President-elect Donald Trump reacted to Meta’s move to end its fact-checking program on Facebook, Instagram and its other platforms, telling Fox News Digital that the company has ‘come a long way.’
Fox News first reported that Meta is ending its fact-checking program and lifting restrictions on speech to ‘restore free expression’ across its platforms, admitting its current content moderation practices have ‘gone too far.’
In an exclusive interview with Fox News Digital, Trump said he thinks Meta’s ‘presentation was excellent.’
‘They have come a long way,’ Trump said.
Trump’s comments come after Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg made the announcement in a video Tuesday morning, saying his company is ‘going to get back to our roots and focus on reducing mistakes, simplifying our policies and restoring free expression on our platforms.’
Meta plans to replace fact-checking with a ‘Community Notes’ model similar to the one used on X.
Meta’s third-party fact-checking program was put in place after the 2016 election and had been used to ‘manage content’ and misinformation on its platforms, largely due to ‘political pressure,’ executives said, but admitted the system had ‘gone too far.’
Meta Chief Global Policy Director Joel Kaplan told Fox News Digital that Meta is also changing some of its own content moderation rules, especially those that they feel are ‘too restrictive and not allowing enough discourse around sensitive topics like immigration, trans issues and gender.’
‘We want to make sure that discourse can happen freely on the platform without fear of censorship,’ Kaplan told Fox News Digital. ‘We have the power to change the rules and make them more supportive of free expression. And we’re not just changing the rules, we are actually changing how we enforce the rules.’
