If Facebook is a place where someone can strike a match of misinformation then its founder, Mark Zuckerberg, just handed gasoline to anyone who wants to spread that misinformation.

Tuesday is a day that will go down in social media infamy. Meta, the company that oversees Facebook, Instagram and Threads, announced that it is essentially ending its fact-checking program designed to stop the spread of misinformation that can range from harmful to outright deadly.

Instead of relying on news organizations and other trained parties to fact-check posts, Meta is turning the job over to users in the form of community notes. In other words, users of Meta’s social media platforms will be in charge of policing themselves.

And the timing of this news couldn’t be more obvious as Donald Trump is set to take office in less than two weeks. This says it all: Meta broke the news exclusively on Fox News’ “Fox & Friends,” the favorite morning show of Trump and his MAGA followers.

The New York Times’ Theodore Schleifer and Mike Isaac wrote, “Ever since Mr. Trump’s victory in November, few big companies have worked as overtly to curry favor with the president-elect. In a series of announcements during the presidential transition period, Meta has sharply shifted its strategy in response to what Mr. Zuckerberg called a ‘cultural tipping point’ marked by the election. … Meta’s move on Tuesday morning elated conservative allies of Mr. Trump, many of whom have disliked Meta’s practice of adding disclaimers or warnings to questionable or false posts. Mr. Trump has long railed against Mr. Zuckerberg, claiming the fact-checking feature treated posts by conservative users unfairly.”

CNN’s Brian Stelter wrote, “Conservatives immediately cheered Meta’s changes while others, including misinformation experts, warned Meta’s platforms would become even more of a cesspool. False and hateful content will likely become even more commonplace on the social networks.”

Nicole Gill, executive director of Accountable Tech, called the news “a gift to Donald Trump and extremists around the world.”

Of course, Zuckerberg can’t come right out and say he’s genuflecting at the altar of Trump, so he explained the decision this way: “We’ve reached a point where it’s just too many mistakes and too much censorship. The recent elections also feel like a cultural tipping point toward once again prioritizing speech. So we are going to get back to our roots, focus on reducing mistakes, simplifying our policies, and restoring free expression on our platforms.”

Zuckerberg’s fallback has always been about freedom of speech and stopping censorship. He also said “fact-checkers have been too politically biased.”

But Poynter president Neil Brown said Meta has always set its own tools and rules, while Poynter’s PolitiFact and Meta’s other fact-checking partners offered independent reviews and showed their sources.

Brown said, “To blame fact-checkers is a disappointing cop-out and it perpetuates a misunderstanding of its own program. Facts are not censorship. Fact-checkers never censored anything. And Meta always held the cards. It’s time to quit invoking inflammatory and false language in describing the role of journalists and fact-checking.”

Even Zuckerberg admitted the new policy could create problems with content moderation, saying, “The reality is this is a tradeoff. It means that we’re going to catch less bad stuff, but we’ll also reduce the number of innocent people’s posts and accounts that we accidentally take down.”

But which is worse? Some innocent posts occasionally and accidentally removed or more “bad stuff” not being caught?

Angie Drobnic Holan, director of the International Fact-Checking Network at Poynter, said in a statement, “This decision will hurt social media users who are looking for accurate, reliable information to make decisions about their everyday lives and interactions with friends and family. Fact-checking journalism has never censored or removed posts; it’s added information and context to controversial claims, and it’s debunked hoax content and conspiracy theories.”

Now that added information and context and debunking will be turned over to those who aren’t trained to do so, or who won’t do the unbiased, deep reporting that places like PolitiFact does.

Drobnic Holan said, “The fact-checkers used by Meta follow a Code of Principles requiring nonpartisanship and transparency. It’s unfortunate that this decision comes in the wake of extreme political pressure from a new administration and its supporters. Fact-checkers have not been biased in their work — that attack line comes from those who feel they should be able to exaggerate and lie without rebuttal or contradiction.”

Tuesday’s news was just another example of Meta’s obvious attempt to cozy up to Trump, just as X owner Elon Musk has. In fact, Meta is taking the same approach to moderating content as X. Meta chief global affairs officer Joel Kaplan said in a blog post, “We’ve seen this approach work on X — where they empower their community to decide when posts are potentially misleading and need more context.”

But has it worked?

Trump and those on the right would say yes. Few others would.

The Washington Post’s Naomi Nix, Will Oremus and Aaron Gregg wrote, “The announcement is the latest in a flurry of changes at Meta that are likely to be embraced by a second Trump administration. Last week, the company named Joel Kaplan, a Republican with deep experience in Washington, as its chief global affairs officer, replacing former British politician Nick Clegg. And on Monday, it named Dana White, a longtime Trump ally and president of the Ultimate Fighting Championship, to its board of directors.”

And Stelter noted, “The company is also getting rid of content restrictions on certain topics, such as immigration and gender identity, and rolling back limits on how much politics-related content users see in their feeds.”

Aaron Sharockman, executive director of PolitiFact and Poynter’s vice president for sales and strategic partnerships, said in a statement that Zuckerberg’s move has nothing to do with free speech or censorship, adding “Mark Zuckerberg’s decision could not be less subtle.”

Sharockman wrote, “Let me be clear: the decision to remove or penalize a post or account is made by Meta and Facebook, not fact-checkers. They created the rules.”

Sharockman reminded audiences that PolitiFact and other U.S.-based journalists merely provided additional speech and context to posts that contained misinformation. Then it was up to Meta and Facebook to decide what to do next, including any penalties, such as removing posts or banning accounts.

Sharockman wrote, “It was Facebook and Meta that created a system that allowed ordinary citizens to see their posts demoted but exempted politicians and political leaders who said the very same things. In case it needs to be said, PolitiFact and U.S.-based journalists played no role in the decision to remove Donald Trump from Facebook.”

Zuckerberg can preach all he wants about censorship and free speech and all that. But it’s pretty easy to see through his words.

Nora Benavidez, senior counsel at the advocacy group Free Press, told The New York Times’ Danielle Kaye, “While Zuckerberg characterized the platform giant’s new approach as a defense of free speech, its real intentions are twofold: Ditch the technology company’s responsibility to protect the health and safety of its users, and align the company more closely with an incoming president who’s a known enemy of accountability.”

More notable pieces on Meta’s controversial decision:

• PolitiFact’s Rebecca Catalanello and Katie Sanders with “Meta ending third-party fact-checking partnership with US partners, including PolitiFact.”
• Wired’s David Gilbert with “Meta’s Fact-Checking Partners Say They Were ‘Blindsided’ by Decision to Axe Them.”
• The New Republic’s Edith Olmsted with “Trump Gets New Propaganda Machine as Mark Zuckerberg Caves on Meta.”
• For Rolling Stone, Nikki McCann Ramirez with “Mark Zuckerberg and Meta Are Finding New Ways to Kiss Trump’s Ass.”

A troubling Post

The Washington Post laid off 4% of its staff on Tuesday. (Status newsletter writer Oliver Darcy warned this was coming earlier this week.) The moves will not impact the Post’s newsroom. Instead, the layoffs — totaling around 100 people — will be in the business departments, including the advertising sales, marketing and information technology teams.

In addition, New York Magazine’s Charlotte Klein tweeted, “The Washington Post laid off most of their PR team as part of today’s cuts. Comms chief Kathy Baird said in an email to her team that the Post will ‘stop the dedicated practice of publicity for our journalism across broadcast and traditional media outlets.’ Instead, Baird says, they are building and launching a ‘Star Talent Unit.’ ‘Talent-driven journalism is the future of media, and personalities and creators will lead the way.’”

In a statement, the Post said, “The Washington Post is continuing its transformation to meet the needs of the industry, build a more sustainable future and reach audiences where they are. Changes across our business functions are all in service of our greater goal to best position The Post for the future.”

It’s just the latest troubling news to come from the Post following high-profile departures in the newsroom, including editor Matea Gold and well-respected reporters Ashley Parker, Michael Scherer, Josh Dawsey, Tyler Pager and Leigh Ann Caldwell. Those journalists left for jobs at other well-known news organizations, including The Atlantic and The New York Times.

And the layoffs come on the heels of Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist Ann Telnaes resigning after the Post refused to publish her cartoon that mocked tech/media leaders, including Post and Amazon owner Jeff Bezos, for bowing down to Donald Trump. The Post claimed the cartoon wasn’t published because it was repetitive of other Post pieces.

As far as Tuesday’s layoffs, the Washington Post Guild put out a statement saying they “vehemently condemn” the layoffs “just days into the new year and at a time when company is actively growing.”

Meeting the press

President-elect Donald Trump, speaking at a press conference on Tuesday at Mar-a-Lago. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

President-elect Donald Trump had a press conference on Tuesday and, of course, it went off the rails. For example: Trump wants to change the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America. No kidding.

That’s just one of the goofball things Trump said. Mediaite’s Isaac Schorr reviews the presser in “Here Are the 5 Craziest Moments from Trump’s Off-the-Wall Presser — From ‘Gulf of America’ to Hezbollah Capitol Rioters.”

Meanwhile, CNN’s John King said on air, “It is remarkable. Somebody who is two weeks from resuming the presidency of the United States who, whether you voted for him or not, whether you like him or not, just engineered a remarkable historical political comeback, is so whiny and so full of grievances.”

A lively balm for heavy news

For this one, I turn it over to my colleague, PolitiFact audience director Josie Hollingsworth.

Who? Weekly is a wonderfully whimsical place on the internet to which I was first introduced via a kooky Facebook page 10 years ago. The creators, journalist Bobby Finger and writer Lindsey Weber, affirm that there are two types of celebrities: Whos and Thems. Pictures of B- and C-list famous folks (your Rita Oras, your Cooper Barneses) filled my feed with funny and odd pieces of gossip and just plain news and information about these Whos trying to get famous. (Thems are proper celebrities: your J. Lo’s, your George Clooneys, your Zendayas).

I then entered the full Who? Weekly universe with their podcast this fall (a true antidote to the constant, severe drum of election news). Following The New York Times’ explosive investigation about Justin Baldoni’s alleged coordinated smear campaign against Blake Lively, Dec. 24th’s Who? episode was a true gem, and it put a finger to a feeling I had but hadn’t been able to put into words.

Backstory: If you were scrolling this summer, you saw the drama-filled press tour for “It Ends with Us,” a film starring Lively and Baldoni (who is also the director). Accusations that Lively promoted her hair care brands over domestic violence prevention were the prevailing online sentiment, and Baldoni’s brand (nice-boy, anti-hyper-masculinity) was on display.

What Who? Weekly did in their “Justin Baldoni 2.0” podcast was exactly what they promised in the episode description: “Will we read the entirety of the Blake Lively v. Justin Baldoni lawsuit so you don’t have to? YOU KNOW IT!.” This episode went in on primary documents, incredible news analysis and a truly fun breakdown of a tabloid’s ethical missteps in a bizarro timeline. It’s a far-reaching, expansive look at the social and media space and how the two are deeply intertwined.

The point of view of the podcast was humble and deeply relatable. Finger and Weber effectively said, “We fell for this smear campaign, too,” and it was approachable to a listener like me. I also didn’t think twice about this widespread narrative online and took it at face value over the summer. Many of us were blown away by the shocking findings of the lawsuit and Times reports that Lively was, in fact, suing Baldoni and his producer for allegedly sexually harassing the actress.

Cheers to these hosts who did excellent research, shared their thoughts in an empathetic and helpful way, and, honestly, because this is celebrity news, had a little fun with this podcast.

Media tidbits

• Writing for the Columbia Journalism Review, veteran newspaper leader Norman Pearlstine — who led newsrooms at The Wall Street Journal, Time Inc., Bloomberg News and the Los Angeles Times — with “Trump, the Public, and the Press.”
• The Washington Post’s Jeremy Barr with “How should the news industry cover Trump? Ten top journalists weigh in.”
• France 24 with “France’s Charlie Hebdo unveils special edition marking 10 years since deadly attack.”
• And The Associated Press’ Thomas Adamson with “France marks 10 years since deadly Charlie Hebdo attack.”
• Fun stuff from my Poynter colleagues: “Here are all the journalism terms you need to know, defined.”
• WWE’s “Raw” made its debut on Netflix on Monday night and, by most accounts, it went well. Awful Announcing’s Ben Axelrod with “Debut episode of ‘Raw’ showed why WWE and Netflix are a perfect match.”

Hot type

• The New York Times with “52 Places to Go in 2025.”
• The Wall Street Journal’s Katie Deighton with “If You Think Owning a Sports Team Is Hard, Try Naming One.”

More resources for journalists

• Our training for public media executives application period ends tomorrow, Jan. 9.
• Lead With Influence is for leaders who manage big responsibilities but have no direct reports. Apply by Jan. 10.
• Cover critical issues surrounding child protection and the foster care system. Apply by Feb. 14.

Have feedback or a tip? Email Poynter senior media writer Tom Jones at tjones@poynter.org.

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