Nick Clegg, Meta's head of global affairs, defends the company's decision to relax content moderation rules and replace factcheckers with a crowdsourced system. He argues that the new approach, similar to that used by X, will be more scalable and address public distrust in traditional fact-checking. Clegg acknowledges criticism regarding the allowance of certain previously restricted language but maintains that Meta aims to facilitate open discourse on social media platforms.
Nick Clegg has given a robust defence of Meta’s decision to downgrade moderation on its social media platforms and get rid of factcheckers.As he prepares to depart the tech company after six years to make way for the more Donald Trump-friendly Joel Kaplan, Clegg denied that Meta was downgrading its commitment to truth.Get set for the working day – we'll point you to all the business news and analysis you need every morning“I would urge you to look at the substance of what Meta announced.
Clegg said the new community notes-type system replacing Meta’s factcheckers, similar to the one used by Elon Musk’s rival social media site X, would initially be introduced in the US. He called it a “crowdsourced or Wikipedia-style approach to misinformation”, which he said could be “more scalable” than factcheckers, who he claimed had lost the trust of the public.At a roundtable with journalists in the Swiss ski resort, Clegg was challenged repeatedly on some of the phrases that will now be permitted on Meta’s platforms, including calling groups of people “filth” and referring to LGBT people as “mentally ill”.
Clegg continued to defend the approach, telling the event in Davos: “There are a number of societal, political issues where, regardless of your own views – and I have very strong views myself – on issues around immigration and gender and so on, where it just seems unfeasible for us for people to be able to say things on the floor of the House of Congress, or in everyday media, that they can’t say on social media. So there have been some very tailored changes.
Business METACONTENT MODERATION SOCIAL MEDIA FACTCHECKING CROWDSOURCING DISCOURSE
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