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Meta’s fact-checking partners claim they “turned a blind eye” to the company’s decision. Opt out of third-party fact-checking on Facebook, Instagram, and Threads Community Notes is in favor of the model, and some say they are now struggling to figure out if they can survive the hole it has left in their funding.
“We heard the news like everyone else,” says Alan Duke, co-founder and editor-in-chief of the fact-checking site Lead Stories, which began working with Meta in 2019. “No advance warning.”
It was announced that Meta no longer plans to use their services blog post by Joel Kaplan, chief global affairs officer Tuesday morning and an accompanying video from Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Instead, the company plans to rely on X-style Community Notes, which allow users to flag content they find inaccurate or need further explanation.
Meta partners with dozens of fact-checking organizations and newsrooms around the world, 10 of which are located in the United States, where Meta’s new rules will be implemented for the first time.
“We were blindsided by it,” Jesse Stiller, managing editor of Check Your Fact, a meta fact-checking partner, tells WIRED. His organization started working with Meta in 2019 and has 10 people working in the editorial office. “It was completely unexpected for us and it was out of left field. We didn’t know this decision was under review until Mark dropped the video overnight.
News organizations that have partnered with Meta since 2016 to prevent the spread of misinformation on the platform are trying to figure out how this change will affect them.
“We have no idea what the future of the website will look like,” says Stiller.
Duke says Lead Stories has diverse revenue streams and most of its operations are outside the U.S., but he contends the decision will still affect them. “The most painful part of this is the loss of very good, experienced journalists who will no longer be paid to investigate false claims uncovered on Meta platforms,” Duke said.
For others, the financial consequences are more dire. An editor at the US-based fact-checking organization Meta, who works with Meta, told WIRED that Meta’s decision “will ultimately put us out of business.”
Meta did not respond to requests for comment on its partners’ lawsuits or the financial impact the decision will have on some organizations.
“Meta owes nothing to the fact-checkers, but it knows that by withdrawing from this partnership, it is eliminating a very important source of funding for the ecosystem globally,” he said. In 2015 and 2019, he served as the director of the International Fact-Checking Network.
Meta’s partners were also outraged by Zuckerberg’s claim that fact-checkers were too biased.
According to Duke, it is disappointing to hear Mark Zuckerberg accuse the organizations in the US third-party fact-checking program Meta of being “too politically biased”. “Let me check it out. Leading Stories adheres to the highest standards of journalism and ethics required by the International Fact-Checking Network’s code of principles. We fact-check a false allegation regardless of where it originates across the political spectrum.”
