Meta ditches fact-checking | CTV News [Video]

Meta’s plans to ditch fact-checking on Instagram and Facebook is stirring up quite the debate.

On Tuesday, Meta chief executive officer Mark Zuckerberg announced changes in content moderation on Facebook and Instagram, which includes parting ways with fact-checking.

Sonja Solomun, deputy director for the Centre for Media, Technology and Democracy, says the decision is discouraging.

“This is a disastrous decision that will have global-ranging implications on democracy,” says Solomun. “Areas like climate disinformation or health communications are going to be really affected.”

Meta’s implementation of fact-checking was initially introduced to combat misinformation online.

Instead, Zuckerberg says Meta will feature user-written “community notes.”

Giles Crouch, a digital anthropologist, says without that it creates leeway for further chaos.

“When you leave it up to people and you don’t manage and govern how that runs, it’s going to turn into chaos. It always has. There are no examples of it actually, fully working,” says Crouch.

“Placing the onus on users is just delegating responsibility away and this is a structural …