Meta recently announced significant changes to its content moderation strategy, marking the end of its third-party fact-checking program on Facebook, Instagram, and Threads. Instead, the company plans to rely on user-generated notes to flag potential misinformation, echoing a system used by X (formerly Twitter), known as Community Notes. This shift comes as Meta prepares for the upcoming Trump administration, signaling a move toward more lenient content policies.

Mark Zuckerberg, Meta's CEO, acknowledged that this new approach would likely result in more "bad stuff" appearing on its platforms, admitting that some false content would slip through while reducing errors of unfair content removal. Meta’s new global policy chief, Joel Kaplan, emphasized that the changes were driven by a desire to address concerns of over-enforcement and political bias within the company's previous approach to moderation. Kaplan had previously appeared on conservative-leaning media, further underscoring the shift toward more lenient content rules.

The move has been praised by many conservatives, including allies of President-elect Trump, who have criticized Meta's fact-checking efforts in the past. Trump and his supporters have long accused the company of unfairly censoring conservative viewpoints. In addition to the end of third-party fact-checking, Meta also announced the removal of restrictions on topics such as immigration and gender identity, aligning with what Zuckerberg called "mainstream discourse."

Meta's content moderation teams will also be relocated from California to Texas, with the goal of addressing concerns about biased decision-making by the company's staff. The overall tone of these changes suggests a broader pivot towards a more open approach to speech, which Meta believes is essential in the context of the upcoming political shifts.