Online lies

META’s announcement of abandoning its fact-checking programme, starting with the United States, comes as a setback to the global campaign against misinformation and disinformation online. The dramatic policy shift marks an end to the independent, third-party fact-checking programme launched by the social media giant in 2016. It cannot be mere coincidence that the decision comes ahead of US President-elect Donald Trump — a vocal critic of Meta for censoring right-wing voices — assuming office. CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s pitch that the key motivation is a desire to embrace free speech is hard to swallow. A reluctant proponent of content moderation, a series of controversies attributed to fake news led him and other social media leaders to take aggressive steps to police discourse. Zuckerberg’s move to mend the rocky relationship with Trump may make business sense, but on all other counts, it is irresponsible. It does not bode well for information integrity worldwide.

Instead of relying on professional fact-checkers to moderate content, Meta is going X’s way, that banks on volunteers writing contextual notes to be added below misleading posts. Serious concerns are being raised about the implications of loosening controls. Watchdogs warn of the ripple effects of removing strong guardrails, and how it could enable misinformation to thrive unchecked on Facebook, Instagram and Threads. The proliferation of falsehoods and in India’s case, hate speeches as well, not only weakens people’s access to trustworthy information, but also the ability to confront their political leaders.

The notion of a ‘WhatsApp university’ that consistently misrepresents facts and twists history has come to denote the pitfalls of giving free rein to social media platforms. Toxic floods of lies need more fact-checkers, not less. Their absence can only mean an open invitation to spread falsehoods and misinformation, with zero accountability.