Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta (Facebook's mother company, Instagram and Threads), announced on its official Instagram page that all Meta platforms returned to their fundamentals: that is to say to the pure and simple freedom of expression which is the primary reason for the creation of these platforms.

In a video , the CEO of Meta, presents these measures which he will take to give priority, to freedom of expression, starting with the United States. In this first step, the CEO of Meta declares: "Get rid of the verifiers of facts and replace them with notes of communities similar to X" SIC. This announcement has raised several concerns in the media environment. From now on, X (formerly Twitter), the social media platform belonging to Elon Musk, is based on user comments to determine the nature of the publications and if necessary, it takes adequate measures. As a reminder, Elon Musk, defender of freedom of expression, had acquired Twitter in 2022 and a wave of dismissal had followed, including the teams responsible for moderation of the content . The observation is simple: users are the best judges and the best placed to verify the comments of each other, by the establishment of community notes.

Establishment of communities notes

Mark Zuckerberg claims that Meta follows the same path as X, based on the community notes system, because "factors of facts" were simply too politically oriented and destroyed more confidence than they created ". He mentions the importance of the last elections that weighed in these reforms. Zuckerberg declares that" the recent elections will give the speech again [...] Concentrated on the simplification of our policies and the restoration of freedom of expression on our platforms ". Restrictions on subjects such as immigration and the question of gender which are simply disconnected from the dominant discourse ".

Reduction in censorship

Mark Zuckerberg wishes to reduce errors responsible for the vast majority of censorship. Stressing the faults of the system, set up to moderate the content, he says that "this commits errors and increases the risk of excessive censorship". The META platform has around 9 billion active users per month and the CEO stresses that even if censorship only affects 1 % of the content this affects millions of users.

Still in the video and according to the testimony of the Meta boss, all the filters used to seek the violations of the policies are also deleted. For lower gravity violations, platforms are based solely on another user reporting content before being able to take measures. He repeats that filters make mistakes because they can delete content that they should not. Zuckerberg recognizes that the withdrawal of filters is "a compromise". Certainly the platform may "detect fewer things, but in return, it will reduce the number of censorships and deletions of publications and user accounts".

Return of civic content.

He says that we are in a new era and the feedback shows that people are once again wanting citizen content. He also mentioned the moving of Meta-Trust's safety and moderation of content. The moving of teams, from California to Texas, aligns with the strategy for promoting freedom of expression, they must work "where there is fewer concerns about the prejudices of our teams".

The CEO ends the video by announcing that Meta will work with President D. Trump, who is a major critic of censorship. He underlines the emergence of a global tendency to institutionalized censorship as in Europe, Latin America, China and other parts of the world. He claims that the only way to restore freedom of expression involves the support of the American government, which benefits from the most solid constitutional protections for freedom of expression. Over the past four years, the Biden administration has attacked Meta and other American companies, encouraging other governments to follow the plunge. In his 2019 speech at Georgetown University entitled "A conversation on freedom of expression", Zuckerberg explained "that freedom of expression was the engine of progress in American society".

This announcement of a change of policy has caused many reactions from the facts of facts, social media, media and other persons concerned. The latter are worried about the dangers of freedom of expression. Mark Zuckerberg and Meta are adapting to the new-top administration and definitely shoot the burning page that has deteriorated since January 6, 2021, when the technology giant had banned the president elected for encouraging the violence that had taken place in the White House.

Joel Kaplan (Director of International Affairs at Meta), also reacted by publishing on his blog : "More speeches and less censorship". He claims that the previous fact of verification of facts (created in 2016) allowed independent experts to provide more precise information on "viral hoaxes". The intention was laudable but it turns out that this did not happen like this, especially in the United States: experts apprehended their mission with their own prejudices and objectivity.

 Meta’s decision to have deleted the fact that the checkers by incorporating a system of community notes marks a crucial change in its approach to content moderation and freedom of expression.

Mark Zuckerberg presents this decision as a return to the fundamentals. The simple announcement of this change triggered debates. Certain criticisms consider that the absence of verifiers of facts could lead to an increase in disinformation with harmful content. At the same time, Meta supporters believe that this is a necessary step to better serve users and thus restore confidence by reducing the government's censorship and overall control over the media.

 Policy changes highlight a broader debate between the foundations of freedom of expression and the challenges linked to maintaining a safe and informed digital space. The in -depth transformation of the Meta group will take advantage of this ability to find a balance managed by users. It remains to be seen, if this initiative will succeed in promoting an open dialogue or exacerbating existing problems? In any event, it is undeniably a turning point in the management of disinformation and governance of social media.

Charity Ani Kosisochukwu