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The subjective truth: alive and thriving in 2025

The new year has arrived with an array of bizarre challenges. On the home front, Canadians battle threats of a trade war, while globally, netizens watch climate change ravage Los Angeles. But among the chaos and noise lurks one enemy more divisive than all the rest: misinformation.

On January 7, Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg announced the company’s shift towards a crowd-sourced fact-checking model, eliminating its previous program that relied on independent journalists and fact checking organizations . This change comes alongside the lifting of content moderation and restrictions to allow for “more speech.” Zuckerberg’s statement only acknowledged concerns regarding the previous fact-checking system, calling it “a tool to censor.”

Still, many have criticized this move as a step in the wrong direction. Claire Wardle, an associate professor of communication at Cornell University, told Vox, “I suspect we will see a rise in false and misleading information.” Meanwhile, Lina Khan, chair of the Federal Trade Commission, suggested on CNBC that Meta may be attempting to secure a “sweetheart deal” with Trump’s White House.

This shift away from private fact-checking is expected to save Meta millions, as the company has spent nearly $100 million on these services since 2016.

Meta plans to adopt a model similar to X’s Community Notes—a system in which “facts” are voted as helpful or unhelpful and appear based on popularity.

In addition to cutting costs and cozying up to the current federal administration, shirking global responsibility for moderation seems to be another motivation for ending the company’s nearly decade-long fight for facts. The beginning of Zuckerberg’s statement further underscores Meta’s dissociation from being “arbiters of truth.” Once Community Notes is implemented, Meta will not write notes or influence which ones appear.

While these updates will be piloted in the United States, when or if Meta plans to bring these changes to its global network of over three billion users remains unclear.