Mark Zuckerberg’s move to end factchecking in US reflects president-elect’s views on social media, says Haugen

Mark Zuckerberg has “heard the message” from Donald Trump on restricting online content, and his Meta platforms will intervene “less and less” on users during the president-elect’s administration, according to the whistleblower Frances Haugen.

Haugen, who revealed the Facebook and Instagram owner’s struggles with user safety in 2021, said the US president-elect thought “the right way to run social media is with no restrictions”.

Zuckerberg’s announcement on Tuesday that Meta was dropping third-party factcheckers in the US and making other moderation changes reflected this view, she added.

“The announcement from Mark is him basically saying: ‘Hey I heard the message, we will not intervene in the United States,’” said Haugen.

Announcing the changes on Tuesday, Zuckerberg said he would “work with President Trump” on pushing back against governments seeking to “censor more”, pointing to Latin America, China and Europe, where the UK and EU have introduced online safety legislation.

Haugen also raised concern over the effect on Facebook’s safety standards in the global south. In 2018 the United Nations said Facebook had played a “determining role” in spreading hate speech against Rohingya Muslims who were the victims of a genocide in Myanmar.

“What happens if another Myanmar starts spiralling up again?” Haugen said. “Is the Trump state department going to call Facebook...

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