Brazil Gives A Deadline To Meta To Explain What Changes It Will Introduce To Fact-Checking Program

The Brazilian President, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, on Thursday said that the changes were 'extremely serious' and announced that he had called a meeting to discuss the topic.

A Meta spokesperson earlier said that this change was only being considered for the US market as of now. 

Source : Unsplash/Mariia Shalabaieva

Meta recently announced that it is ending its third-party fact-checking mechanism and replacing it with a feature that we see on Elon Musk owned X i.e., Community Notes. Following this change, the Brazil government has now given Meta a deadline till today to explain the changes that it will make in its fact-checking program. At the moment, it is unclear what follows if Meta fails to adhere to this deadline. 

Solicitor General Jorge Messias on Friday said, “I'd like to express the Brazilian government's enormous concern about the policy adopted by the Meta company, which is like an airport windsock, changing its position all the time according to the winds. Brazilian society will not be at the mercy of this kind of policy.”

The Brazilian President, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, on Thursday said that the changes were 'extremely serious' and announced that he had called a meeting to discuss the topic. 

A Meta spokesperson earlier said that this change was only being considered for the US market as of now. 

Meta Buries Third-Party Fact-Checking Program

Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, is phasing out its third-party fact-checking program and replacing it with a new initiative called Community Notes. This system will function similarly to the Community Notes feature currently available on X (formerly Twitter).

According to a report by the Associated Press, Meta explained that the decision stems from concerns about potential biases among expert fact-checkers, which the company believes led to an excessive amount of content being scrutinised due to those biases.

Meta’s Chief Global Affairs Officer Joel Kaplan, in a blog post, said, “We’ve seen this approach work on X – where they empower their community to decide when posts are potentially misleading and need more context.”