Meta announced that it would end its third-party fact-checking program in the United States and move Facebook and Instagram toward a user-contributed Community Notes system resembling the approach used by X. Chief executive Mark Zuckerberg said the company wanted to emphasize expression and argued that outside fact-checkers had introduced political bias and reviewed too much material.
The plan marked a reversal of a program Meta began in December 2016 amid concern about false information circulating on its services. Over time, the company said it worked with more than 100 organizations across more than 60 languages. The Associated Press had stopped participating a year before the January 2025 announcement.
Under the replacement model, users would write contextual notes on posts instead of relying on professional fact-checking partners. Meta also planned to relocate its content-moderation team from California to Texas and ease some limits on discussion of immigration and gender. The company did not immediately say how many employees might move.
The policy arrived shortly before Donald Trump was due to return to the White House. Meta had suspended Trump after the January 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol. Trump and allies had repeatedly criticized Zuckerberg, including over Zuckerberg’s $400 million contribution to help local election officials administer voting during the pandemic.
Meta’s relationships around the incoming administration had recently changed. In December, Meta contributed $1 million toward the inauguration. Zuckerberg also dined with Trump at Mar-a-Lago, and the company added Ultimate Fighting Championship chief executive Dana White, a Trump ally, to its board. Asked whether his previous threats influenced the moderation decision, Trump answered that they probably had.
Outside observers disagreed about the likely consequences. Brendan Nyhan, a Dartmouth College political scientist, viewed the change as part of a wider pattern of institutions accommodating an incoming president they feared could target them. Dan Evon of the News Literacy Project said ending professional checks would remove useful context and reinforce allegations that fact-checking itself is partisan.
Emarketer analyst Jasmine Enberg described the decision as political repositioning. She expected approval from conservatives who believed Meta suppressed speech, but concern from liberal users and advertisers. She also noted that Meta’s scale and advertising operation gave it more insulation than X, which had lost some advertisers after changing its own moderation practices.
Facebook remained a major US platform: about 68% of American adults used it, according to Pew Research Center data cited in the report. The announcement therefore changed how a large audience would encounter disputed claims. The evidence described Meta’s policy decision and reactions to it; it did not establish whether Community Notes would ultimately improve or weaken accuracy.
