Biden calls Meta’s decision to drop factchecking ‘really shameful’

Joe Biden has pushed back on Meta chief executive officer Mark Zuckerberg’s decision to replace Facebook factchecking departments with company-moderated community notes, calling the decision a “really shameful” choice.

“The whole idea of walking away from factchecking as well as not reporting anything having to do with discrimination regarding … I find it to be contrary to American justice,” the outgoing president told reporters during a press call on Friday. “Telling the truth matters.”

Zuckerberg said last week that the decision to end the factchecking practice on Facebook, Instagram and Threads was made because Facebook’s factchecking, brought in December 2016, had done more harm than good in terms of public trust.

“The recent elections also feel like a cultural tipping point towards, once again, prioritizing speech,” Zuckerberg said. “So we’re going to get back to our roots and focus on reducing mistakes, simplifying our policies and restoring free expression on our platforms.”

The dispute between the Meta CEO and Biden – who leaves office on 20 January as Donald Trump begins a second presidency – comes as Zuckerberg has, like most tech titans, signaled his willingness to do business with the incoming administration. For Zuckerberg, that includes contributing to Trump’s record-setting second inauguration fund.

Zuckerberg claimed during an episode of The Joe Rogan Experience released on Friday that Biden administration officials had pressured Facebook to remove certain content from the social media platform. In a letter last year to Jim Jordan, the Republican chair of the US House judiciary committee, Zuckerberg said that the White House “repeatedly pressured” Facebook to remove “certain Covid-19 content including humor and satire”.

In his conversation with Rogan, Zuckerberg said: “Basically, these people from the Biden administration would call up our team and, like, scream at them and curse. It just got to this point where we were like, ‘No, we’re not gonna, we’re not gonna take down things that are true. That’s ridiculous.’”

Zuckerberg said he was not against vaccines per se. But he said that while the Biden administration was “trying to push” the Covid-19 vaccination program, “they also tried to censor anyone who is basically arguing against it”.

He said that Facebook had “at times” bended to the administration’s bidding and made decisions that “with the benefit of hindsight and new information, we wouldn’t make today”.

The tech giant informed workers on Friday that it was abandoning its diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) team and rolling back related programs, citing the evolving “legal and policy landscape” in the US. The move echoed those by companies including Walmart and Ford that had also rolled back DEI programs.

After Zuckerberg made the call to for his company to abandon its formal factchecking service, the White House said the administration had “encouraged responsible actions to protect public health and safety”.

“Our position has been clear and consistent: we believe tech companies and other private actors should take into account the effects their actions have on the American people, while making independent choices about the information they present,” it added.

But the decision by Zuckerberg to place Meta’s social media factchecking in the hands of other users, in keeping with the practice on Elon Musk’s X platform, comes as information control – or lack thereof – and the spread of “misinformation” become paramount political issues.

Biden said during an interview with USA Today published on Wednesday that the biggest regret of his presidency was a failure to counter misinformation, including assertions by Trump.

During Biden’s press call on Friday, likely to be the last of his lone term as president, he said Zuckerberg’s decision to drop factchecking on Meta’s social media sites in favor of free speech while maintaining prohibitions on content that crossed into illegality was irresponsible.

“I don’t know what that’s all about – it’s completely contrary to what America is about,” Biden said. “We want to tell the truth. The idea that a billionaire can buy something and say that they won’t factcheck, and then you have millions of people reading it – I think it’s really shameful.”