VersusDialogue

FREE SPEECH OR FREE-FOR-ALL?
Met@, which owns this platform, Instagram and Threads, has decided to reduce content moderation and cut third party fact-checking in the U.S. (to begin with) in order to promote 'free speech'.

CEO Mark Zuckerberg admits the decision is at least partly sparked by a desire to improve the company’s relationship with incoming president Donald Trump - and Trump believes the same thing. When asked by a reporter whether he thought Meta's turnaround was due to his past threats, Trump responded, "probably".
Was that before or after Met@ pledged US$1million to his inauguration event? This is the same Meta (then Facebook) that banned Trump from its platforms in 2021 after the Capitol riots, for inciting violence.

It’s no secret that hashtag ’s moderation practices have been flawed: the company admitted that 10-20% of content removal actions were likely mistakes, often due to a rigid, context-blind approach. Meta's efforts at censorship remind me of the old lady in Tom & Jerry, waving her cane around in a vain attempt to stop the cat from eating the mouse. But the impact they've had on limiting legitimate expression is anything but funny.

Something had to change, but is this really about free speech?
Because earlier this year, Meta also decided to shut down Crowdtangle, a tool that tracked misinformation and offered a look at the way fakenews spreads on its platforms. Researchers and journalists have criticized the shutdown, arguing it will reduce transparency during critical periods like elections.
One might argue that this is the opposite of free speech.

So what is Meta proposing for the over 50% of Americans who are on Facebook and Instagram?

➡️ A Shift to the same Community Notes model used by that bastion of truth, X: users will be responsible for flagging false or hateful content.
This even though hate speech increased by 50% after X shifted to Community Notes in October 2022, according to a study by the Center for Countering Digital Hate conducted between January 2022-June 2023.

Here’s the thing:
Facebook is the social media superspreader of disinformation, because its hashtag promotes anything that keeps us glued to our screens, no matter what that is - and hashtag does that very well: it gets our attention by appealing to our emotions, not our rational minds. Asking the same people who will inevitably consume even more fake news once this goes through to also be the ones to flag it is like asking a drunk passenger to pilot a plane.

This is why media literacy and digital EQ are such a fundamental part of Versus’ mission to equip people to choose hashtag over division: because our information diets have the power to polarize us, and they are.

Do you agree with this decision or not? Let me know in the comments👇🏻