Horrific online abuse shows social media giants need to get a grip: Greg Wright

The social media giant denied that it was ending fact-checking, but was instead “moving to a system which is more scalable” following “feedback” from its users.

In January, Meta boss Mark Zuckerberg announced the change, saying at the time that fact-checkers were too “politically biased” and were having an impact on “free expression”.

This move was seen by many as an attempt to get closer to the pro-free speech stance of the incoming President Donald Trump.

During an appearance before MPs on the Science, Innovation and Technology Select Committee, Chris Yiu, Meta’s director of public policy for northern Europe said the decision to replace third-party fact checkers with a community notes system in the US, and to reduce content moderation on some topics, was based on feedback that debate on sensitive issues was being “suppressed”.

However Chris Morris, chief executive of independent fact-checking charity Full Fact, said Meta was dismantling processes that lead users to “good information” online.

Mr Morris told MPs that replacing experts trained to establish factual accuracy with a community notes model designed to reach consensus “risks skewing information circulating on Meta platforms towards what some users think rather than what the evidence says”.

He added: “Community notes have a role to play in improving our online conversation, but is not the same as independent fact checking.”

During the session, where representatives from TikTok and Elon Musk’s X also gave evidence, Emily Darlington MP clashed with X executive Wilfredo Fernandez over the firm’s policies.

Ms Darlington read out a violent threat made to her in replies to her own post on X, as well as a string of racist, anti-semitic, homophobic and violent posts from the same account that were also posted to the platform.

“Is this acceptable under the guise of free speech on X these days?,” she asked X’s Mr Fernandez.

The X executive said the comments were “abhorrent” and that he would ensure “our teams take a look”, but when pressed on whether the account in question would be removed he added that he “can’t make any assurances”.

This failure to provide Ms Darlington with any form of assurance must have angered and exasperated everyone watching the hearing.

He added, however: “I can assure you that our teams will review under our terms of service, and I’m sorry that you had to experience that.”

The horrific evidence of abuse uncovered by the MPs must provide the social media giants with food for thought.

Robust fact-checking can never be branded a suppression of debate, especially if it roots out bullies and spreaders of racist misinformation.

Greg Wright is deputy business editor of The Yorkshire Post