The head of X has called Meta’s decision to scrap fact checkers and scale back content moderation in favour of X-style Community Notes “really exciting”.
Linda Yaccarino told Mark Zuckerberg “welcome to the party” while speaking during an appearance at the CES technology show in Las Vegas on Tuesday.
Her comments came hours after Meta made the surprise announcement that it was to move away from using third-party fact checkers to flag misleading content in favour of user-based notes, claiming the system amounted to censorship and was riddled with bias.
In a short video from Mr Zuckerberg and supporting blog post from the company, the social media giant said it would also scale back its automated content moderation systems to allow for more free speech on its sites, despite Mr Zuckerberg admitting it would mean the company would “catch less bad stuff”.
The decision has been widely criticised by commentators and online safety campaigners, who warned it would allow misinformation to more easily flow on Meta platforms and leave users more at risk from harmful content.
But speaking during during an on-stage Q&A at CES, Ms Yaccarino said: “I think it’s really exciting that when you think about Community Notes being good for the world.
“Think about it as this global collective consciousness, keeping each other accountable at global scale in real time. And it couldn’t be more validating than to see that Mark and Meta realised that.
“When you think about Community Notes, Mark and Meta realised that it’s the most effective, fastest fact-checking, without bias… also it inspires great behaviour. Human behaviour is inspired because when a post is noted, it’s dramatically shared less, so that’s the power of Community Notes.”
She added: “We say: Mark, Meta, welcome to the party.”
Despite her championing of the community notes system, studies have shown X’s system has failed to counter false and misleading claims – including about the US presidential election in November last year.
A study from the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) from October found that 74% of posts with accurate Community Notes were not being shown to users, while hundreds of misleading posts in the study’s sample which did not display available Community Notes had amassed more than two billion views.
Responding to Meta’s announcement on Tuesday, CCDH chief executive Imran Ahmed said: “By abandoning its fact-checking programme in favour of a discredited ‘community notes’ system, Meta is turbocharging the spread of unchallenged online lies, worsening the spread of hate, and creating more risks to our communities, democracy, public health, and the safety of our kids.
“Meta is now saying it’s up to you to spot the lies on its platforms, and that it’s not their problem if you can’t tell the difference, even if those lies, hate, or scams end up hurting you.
“Rather than stepping up to the challenge of responsible platform governance, Meta is retreating from accountability.
“This is huge step back for online safety, transparency, and accountability, and it could have terrible offline consequences in the form of real-world harm.”