Zuckerberg’s U-turn in the political context – A commentary

Zuckerberg announced five concrete measures to correct supposed mistakes from the past. 

1. Fact checkers will be replaced by community notes (see X) in the USA. It is unclear whether the changes will be implemented in Europe. A dpa spokesperson referred to existing contracts with Meta, according to which the German Press Agency acts as a fact checker. The research network Correctiv is also a contractual partner of Meta.

2. Meta is simplifying its content rules, in particular topic-specific restrictions in the areas of migration and gender. 

3. Meta is reducing filters that previously scanned posts for policy violations and automatically restricted suspicious content. Instead, filters will only focus on serious violations. In future, Meta will use a complaint-based system for minor violations. This means that a post must be actively reported by users in order to be hidden by Meta platforms.  

4. According to Meta, it will remove the reach restrictions for political content in future. This applied for a few months to posts that “have to do with laws, elections or socially relevant topics”.

5. Meta is relocating departments that moderate its platforms from liberal California to conservative Texas. This move is highly symbolic.  

Meta between the fronts in the US election campaign

Zuckerberg himself cites the fact that millions of pieces of content have been incorrectly deleted or restricted by filters as the reason for the far-reaching changes. This had destroyed more trust among users than it had created. During the US election campaign last autumn, Meta was often criticized by Republican representatives for this approach. Some users are now celebrating the new measures as a victory for freedom of expression. They are opposed by a broad camp that sees Zuckerberg’s announcements as closing ranks with US President-elect Donald Trump.

Zuckerberg himself spoke of a “trade-off” at the time of the announcement. This is very likely to mean that users will see more “bad content” – possibly fake news, discriminatory content, insults, etc. – in their feeds. In return, it is highly likely that restrictions on posts that were unjustly affected will be lifted.   

Freedom of expression vs. moderation 

One of the long-simmering conflicts in social media is the supposed contradiction between freedom of expression and “censorship”. In the wake of the 2016 presidential election in the US, Meta embarked on a path of restricting content using technical tools, which was regularly categorized by numerous critics as censorship and a restriction of freedom of expression.  

The basis for this assessment lies in the error-prone nature of the filters used. This has regularly caused controversy, particularly when it comes to “sensitive” social issues such as migration or security.

You have to be allowed to say that! Fake news? Criminally relevant texts? Critical positions? Where freedom of expression in social media begins and where it ends is – as observers of the discourse of recent years know – not as easy to answer as one might think. Zuckerberg’s intention is to give people a greater voice for their thoughts and experiences, even on socially controversial topics such as migration, environmental protection, etc.

The conflict with the European Union 

Since the introduction of the Digital Services Act and the Digital Markets Act, the European Union has been in an ongoing dispute with Meta. The two EU regulations restrict platforms and search engines with over 45 million users per month and are intended to curb the spread of fake news, among other things. Since Zuckerberg’s latest announcements, in the course of which the Meta boss criticized the increasing regulation by the EU, there has been renewed rumbling in Brussels. If Meta is also planning changes to the content guidelines in the European Union, the social media giant must first present a risk assessment to the European Commission. At a press conference, Thomas Regnier also pointed out on behalf of the European Commission that the way in which content is moderated is up to Meta, provided that the company complies with the legal framework of the European Union. Meta can therefore establish Community Notes as a future moderation system as long as it effectively combats false reports.

Effects on political communication 

In recent years, political communication on meta-platforms has become increasingly difficult – in particular due to the restriction of the reach of political content. This included not only information on laws or elections, but also posts on socially relevant topics. Meanwhile, social media has increasingly evolved from a pure entertainment medium to an entertaining information medium. A new, more political generation is growing up on social media and is actively demanding political information. As a result, young people’s interest in politics is at a long-term high.

Zuckerberg’s announcements will simultaneously make it easier and more difficult for political players to do justice to this trend. The fact that political content will no longer be restricted in its reach is an important step towards enabling balanced political and journalistic information. The move away from fact-checkers towards community notes promises more freedom of opinion and at the same time appeals to each individual to question supposed facts. In future, we can only combat misinformation on social media by questioning and differentiating statements and making our own knowledge available – even though the tone may become harsher. This not only makes political parties and state organizations responsible, but also every single user.