SUMMARY: Meta has announced it will discontinue its third-party fact-checking program on Facebook and Instagram, opting instead for a crowd-sourced model similar to X’s Community Notes. Experts warn the change could lead to increased misinformation, trolling, and harmful online discourse, while Meta claims it will better support free speech and reduce bias.

Australians will be exposed to more abuse, trolling and the ugly underbelly of the internet as Facebook and Instagram abandon specialist fact-checking services, experts say.

Meta announced on Wednesday it would scrap its third-party fact-checking program, starting in the United States, over concerns it hampers free speech.

It will instead adopt the popular crowdsourced fact-checking model used by Elon Musk’s social media platform X.

Digital marketing agency founder Sabri Suby, who also appeared as an investor on the television show Shark Tank, said removing the muzzle would change the algorithm.

“All of us are going to see different content,” he said.

“This is a move to have the internet more aligned with what it was designed to be, which is to allow for free speech. 

“And yes, there is certainly an ugly underbelly that will no doubt open up a whole lot of negativity, but that is also the world we live in. 

“You can’t put guardrails on the internet.”

The change, made a fortnight out from US President-elect Donald Trump’s return to the White House, is no surprise to news and political communication expert Emma Briant.

“With at least 13 billionaires in his new administration, including Big Tech oligarchs like Musk, Trump has sent a powerful message across America’s wealthy right-wing elite – now is your time, not theirs,” the Monash University associate professor said.

“Clearly (Meta boss) Mark Zuckerberg heard him loud and clear. 

“Ordinary citizens should be very concerned.”

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese meanwhile warned social media giants they “have a social responsibility” to the Australian public.

The fact-checking program typically involves journalists at internationally accredited agencies investigating and reviewing claims on social media through rigorous questioning, consideration of evidence and verification using multiple sources.

Posts deemed to be “False” or “Altered” have a fact-check article appended to them and may receive reduced distribution across Meta’s platforms Facebook, Instagram and Threads.

A recent federal inquiry highlighted more Australians were concerned about misinformation and disinformation than the global average.

Nearly half of all young Australian adults, and 20 per cent across all age groups, use social media as their main source of news, according to a 2024 report by the federal media authority.

“Mr Zuckerberg’s decision is all about maximising the profits of Meta his profits at the expense of community safety and human decency,” Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young told ABC radio on Wednesday.

“It’s got nothing to do with freedom of speech and all got to do with maximum profits creating outrage, anger, abuse (and) supercharging that with secret algorithms that generate maximum profit through their advertising business model.

“It’s dangerous, it’s going to be damaging for democracy, and it will have ramifications back here in Australia.”

Australian Associated Press said its fact-checking agency AAP FactCheck’s contract with Meta was not impacted by the US decision and its work would continue in 2025.

“Independent fact-checkers are a vital safeguard against the spread of harmful misinformation and disinformation that threatens to undermine free democratic debate in Australia and aims to manipulate public opinion,” chief executive Lisa Davies said

Meta said it decided to end the program because expert fact-checkers had their own biases and too much content ended up being checked.

“A program intended to inform too often became a tool to censor,” it said.

“We think (community notes) could be a better way of achieving our original intention of providing people with information about what they’re seeing, and one that’s less prone to bias.”

The boss of X welcomed Meta’s decision, saying the move “couldn’t be more validating” for its own decision to let users police content themselves.

Chief executive Linda Yaccarino’s statements come despite studies criticising X Corp’s crowd-sourced fact-checking program, Community Notes, which researchers said allowed misinformation to spread without verification.

“Meta realised that it’s the most effective, fastest fact-checking without bias,” she said.