Honoring Jimmy Carter’s legacy
Peterson Institute senior editorial adviser Steven Weisman joined ‘MediaBuzz’ to discuss the life and legacy of the 39th president.
Mark Zuckerberg, who often bends with the political winds, is getting out of the fact-checking business.
And this is part of a broader effort by the Meta CEO to ingratiate himself with Donald Trump after a long and testy relationship.
After a previous outcry, Zuck made a great show of declaring that Facebook would hire fact-checkers to combat misinformation on the globally popular site. That was a clear sign that Facebook was becoming more of a journalistic organization rather than a passive poster of users’ opinions (and dog pictures).
But it didn’t work. In fact, it led to more info-suppression and censorship. Why should anyone believe a bunch of unknown fact-checkers working for one of the increasingly unpopular tech titans?
MESSY BACKSTAGE JOCKEYING IN TRUMP TRANSITION COULD SHAPE HILL STRATEGY 4 YEARS AFTER JAN 6
A side-by-side of Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and President-elect Donald Trump. (Getty Images)
Now Zuckerberg is pulling the plug, announcing his decision in a video to underscore its big-deal nature:
“The problem with complex systems is they make mistakes. Even if they accidentally censor just 1 percent of posts. That’s millions of people. And we’ve reached a point where it’s just too many mistakes and too much censorship. The recent elections also feel like a cultural tipping point towards once again prioritizing speech.”
Let me jump in here. Zuckerberg bluntly admits, with that line about “cultural tipping point,” that he’s following the conventional wisdom–and, of course, the biggest tipping point is Trump’s election to a second term. And skeptics are portraying this as a bow to the president-elect and his team.
TRUMP THREATENS MORE LAWSUITS AGAINST MEDIA AS ABC TO PAY $15 MILLION TO SETTLE CASE
“So we’re gonna get back to our roots and focus on reducing mistakes,…
