Meta's Pay-to-Play Gambit

The broligarchs aren't even trying to hide it anymore.

I’m am co-publishing my notes for CAFE Insider right here on my Substack, so you can get them immediately! Listen to this note and get insights from myself and other legal experts by following The Counsel Podcast from CAFE.

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Dear Reader,

If the first Trump administration marked the beginning of the post-truth era, then the second Trump administration marks the beginning of the post-giving a crap about the truth era. Two weeks ago, Mark Zuckerberg announced that Meta would dismantle its independent third-party fact-checking program which was implemented in the wake of the exposure of Russia’s disinformation operations in the 2016 election to reduce the amount of mis- and disinformation that was amplified on the platform. In his statement, Zuckerberg said that Meta will be “going back to its roots and focus on reducing mistakes, simplifying its policies, and restoring free expression on its platforms.” In other words, Meta is one big “shrug” emoji and the rest of us are on our own.

Before diving into what this all means, a few caveats. First, fact-checking is not a silver bullet for false or misleading content on social media. Research shows that, depending on the political salience of the issue (in other words, how much of your political identity is tied up in whatever the false claim is), corrective information won’t necessarily change a person’s mind and might even make them double down on their beliefs. In addition, Meta is technically not abandoning fact-checking completely; rather, it is instituting a “community notes” model, similar to the one currently used on Twitter/X, where users can provide context or corrections, which are aggregated and included under the ostensibly false or misleading posts.

In terms of policies, though, this really shouldn’t be an either-or proposition. The oft-cited adage that “A lie can get halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes” (a quote usually misattributed to Mark Twain) is of course literally true, at least in terms of reach, when it comes to social media. A counternarrative is still better late than never, especially when there may be life and death issues at stake, like during the COVID-19 pandemic. Independent fact-checkers can identify viral hoaxes and dangerous disinformation more broadly and efficiently than community notes, which may not even kick in until the viral claim has already saturated the information space. Finally, practically speaking, community notes are going to end up on only a fraction of the false information that gets promulgated on Meta. In any case, a true commitment to truth and accuracy would have added community notes to the existing fact-checking process. The replacement of one with another really reflects a deeper philosophical shift: Meta doesn’t believe it’s responsible for the negative externalities of its product, and has simply shifted the burden of mitigating the effects of those externalities to its users.

But if that were it, then we could just relegate Meta into the club of thuggy industries, like the Big Tobacco, or gun manufacturers, which profit off of societal harms. What makes it worse is that Meta’s decision isn’t really just a policy disagreement over the best way to maintain the integrity of the marketplace of ideas on Meta. It’s actually a political statement – more specifically, a political statement intended to appease an audience of one. How do we know this? Because in his announcement, Zuckerberg trotted out the GOP’s favorite c-word: “censorship.” Despite the fact that First Amendment protections don’t apply to Meta’s internal content moderation policies (it’s not the government!), the “censorship” claim has been the right-wing’s bogeyman ever since the platform began cracking down on COVID disinformation, and then on Stop the Steal and QAnon content following the January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol. From congressional hearings to state lawsuits that have ended up in front of the Supreme Court, the right has accused Meta of having partisan bias because the vast majority of content that got fact-checked and removed (quote “censored”) was coming from right-wing MAGA sources. (The Supreme Court, for its part, found the claim that the government was indirectly pressuring, or “jawboning,” Meta into removing content to be too tenuous for the states to have standing.)

Now look, there is mis- and dis-information on both the right and left of the political spectrum. However, as I have explained on my Substack, the media ecosystems on the right and left are asymmetrical. Scholars have empirically demonstrated that the false information on the right gains more traction and engagement and enters mainstream discourse inside the Fox Media/MAGA influencer bubbles – what they call the “propaganda feedback loop.” Just think about the rumors of Haitian immigrants eating pets, or the Big Lie, or any number of false claims about the COVID vaccine which became the basis for standard MAGA talking points. By contrast, the media ecosystem on the left is still dominated by traditional journalism and mainstream media (for now), so the most outrageous and easily debunked claims of the far-left get screened out and just don’t get the same kind of mileage. In this landscape, fact-checking of the most viral mis- and disinformation is by definition going to appear as though it has a partisan bias, because – well, I’m not sure how to say this any less bluntly – the political right just engages and amplifies more bullshit. Sorry (not sorry).

In fact, the irony of Zuckerberg’s statement is that by adopting the politicized “censorship” narrative as true, and even using it as the rationale for his policy change, he is officially making Meta, and himself, a part of the so-called “propaganda feedback loop.” Bringing that loop full circle, Zuckerberg defended eliminating restrictions on certain kinds of hate speech, like against trans individuals and immigrants, noting that, “It’s not right that things can be said on TV or the floors of Congress, but not on our platforms.” In other words, if bad faith, performance politicians like Jim Jordan and Marjorie Taylor Greene make outrageous or false claims that could result in harm to people or undermine our civic processes – like fomenting violence against Anthony Fauci, or claiming that the 2020 election was rigged – it ipso facto becomes a topic worthy of discussion and amplification on Meta. What could go wrong? Oh, and as icing on the cake, Zuckerberg announced that he will be moving his trust and safety teams out of California and into Texas – because we all know that Meta will be more safe and trustworthy if their employees are working in a red state.

In case Zuckerberg’s intention to suck up to the new administration wasn’t obvious enough already, he has also hired Trump supporter and Ultimate Fighting Championship CEO Dana White to Meta’s board, and contributed $1 million to Trump’s inaugural fund, taking center stage with the other tech broligarchs during the ceremony. So it’s pretty clear that Zuckerberg hopes to appease the new Trump administration, but why? Apart from Trump threatening to send Zuckerberg to jail (not sure for what), a likely reason is that in December 2020, Meta was sued by the Federal Trade Commission and 41 state attorneys general for engaging in anticompetitive practices in violation of antitrust laws. That lawsuit goes to trial in April – unless Meta is able to strike a “sweetheart deal” with Trump’s FTC. It looks like Zuckerberg understands that in Trump 2.0, he’s gotta pay to play…and in his case the price is a commitment to the truth.

Stay Informed,

Asha