Latin American Fact Checkers Support Meta’s Next Moves

This 180-degree change is in response to Donald Trump’s impending second term and competitive ways. Like X’s Community Notes. Decided not to invest more money in the meta program. It now hopes that Facebook and Instagram users will decide for themselves what content is misinformation.

In a statement announcing Zuckerberg’s cancellation of the program, he said fact-checkers were succumbing to political bias, destroying more trust in the United States than they had created. However, for Laura Zommer, former director and current head of Chequeado (one of the most important Spanish-language authenticating organizations) and LatamChequea Fact checked (checking media focused on the Latino community in the US), Zuckerberg’s statements are not a surprise and there is no scientific evidence for his claims. “Far from censorship, fact-checkers add context,” Sommer says. “We never advocate the removal of content. We want citizens to be better informed to make their own decisions.”

Zommer, who is skeptical about how eliminating the program will benefit Meta, points out that the company is contradicting itself by ending the fact-checking program because it has highlighted its positive results in the past. Zommer also agrees with current IFCN director Angie Drobnic Holan on LinkedIn. postwrote: “Unfortunately, this decision was made after extreme political pressure from the new administration and its supporters. Fact checkers have not been biased in their work – this line of attack comes from those who feel they should be able to exaggerate and lie without rebuttal or contradiction.”

The Hispanic community faces a possible new wave of misinformation as Trump threatens mass deportations of migrants just days before his inauguration. “The evidence leads us to think it’s going to be bad. We’ll see until it’s implemented, but we can say that one of the main disinformation narratives during the Trump campaign was anti-immigrant, for example, saying that immigrants will cheat. That’s a lie. The data from the past is that suggests that the decision may have a negative impact on Latino communities in the United States.”

Anti-immigrant rhetoric isn’t the only thing threatening the ecosystem. In an age where deepfake video and audio scams are rampant, having reliable data will be a priority.

Spanish-language fact-checking media is at risk

The Latin American news ecosystem is at risk from economic weakness. “Facebook’s fact-checking program was still paying for fact-checking organizations and news organizations with a fact-checking division. So I think it’s likely that if these organizations don’t diversify soon, a lot of them will go away. ” says Pablo Medina, disinformation research editor Latin American Center for Investigative Journalism, CLIP.

Although the ruling applies only to the United States for now, the disappearance of the project has caused consternation in the Spanish media ecosystem. “Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s attack on the ‘secret courts’ in Latin America that promote censorship of the platform – a false claim – shows that Brazil is the main focus of the company’s concerns,” says Tai Nalon. CEO of Aos Fatoshis one of the most important fact-checking media in the global south.

“It’s completely consistent with the rhetoric of Donald Trump, a regular detractor of journalism and fact-checking,” says Nalon. The arguments used by Zuckerberg have been widely used by the far-right around the world to legitimize effective counter-disinformation initiatives. . Since there has never been any dissatisfaction with the work of fact-checkers in the past, this seems to me to be a calculated move to gain some political advantage. We know that Meta is facing antitrust cases in the United States, and being close to the government could be an advantage for the company.”

Meanwhile, as Laura Sommer says, evidence from the past gives the news ecosystem reason to worry.

WIRED en español contacted Meta for this story. The company responded in this regard through a media representative statement of decision (in Spanish). and said that this is not for WhatsApp and only for US verifiers.

This story appeared first WIRED in Spanish and translated from Spanish.