Brussels (Brussels Morning Newspaper) – The EU Commission’s chief spokesperson, Paula Pinho, rejected Meta head Mark Zuckerberg’s charge that the EU engaged in “censorship” with its tech rules.
“We absolutely refute any claims of censorship on our side,” the spokesperson told journalists in Brussels. This comes after Zuckerberg announced that Meta would end its fact-checking partnerships and instead rely on the community to handle content moderation.
In a recent statement, Zuckerberg described Meta’s previous efforts at content moderation as “censorship,” further stating that external fact-checkers were politically biased. He said the company would transition to a system where users determine the value of content, similar to what Elon Musk has done on X.
What changes has Meta introduced to content moderation?
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced new content moderation policies for the company on January 7, 2025. He has now done away with third-party fact-checkers and reliance on user-driven moderation. In this process, he aims to relax rules on political content and contentious issues such as immigration and gender identity.
He conceded that the moderation systems had grown too complex and strict, thereby overly censoring innocent content. Meta will instead use a system called “Community Notes,” where users will be able to provide corrections and fact-checks directly on posts rather than relying on professional fact-checkers.
Critics argue that this may deteriorate the climate of misinformation. The responsibility of making such identification currently lies with qualified professionals, not regular users; therefore, relying on the capability of the community to identify it may make for a less-than-reliable information environment on the Meta platforms.
