Meta’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg has announced this week that, starting in the US, the company will “get rid of fact-checkers” by progressively phasing out its third-party fact-checking programme, and instead following the much-criticized “community notes” approach introduced by Elon Musk on X.

This move is in stark contrast with Mr. Zuckerberg’s previous commitment to make his services a safer place for all users. His stated aim to “prioritise free speech” is politically motivated and an alibi to divert public attention away from the many instances of information manipulation and foreign interference that for years have wreaked havoc on the services of his company. By misrepresenting independent and professional fact-checking organisations as biased censors, he seeks to justify a decision that will deprive users of one important tool for them to critically assess the information they receive through Meta’s services, while being aware of narratives deliberately aimed at sapping civic discourse and democratic processes. He also undermines Meta’s past efforts to cope with a variety of service infrastructure manipulations and inauthentic behaviour that are exploited by disinformation agents to mislead users and silence legitimate voices.

At a deeper level, Mr. Zuckerberg’s statement is an attack on the whole policy framework that the EU has established to promote an enabling environment for freedom of expression in the digital sphere: an environment where citizens can not only impart, but also freely seek and receive information upon which they can rely and freely form their own opinions.

Moreover, Mr. Zuckerberg’s intervention is likely to worsen the climate of hostility and heighten the risks of abuse that independent journalists and fact-checking professionals already face.

At the European Digital Media Observatory, we take this daunting start of 2025 as an opportunity to double down on our efforts to explain and promote the evidence-based EU approach to countering disinformation and engage with all relevant parties, including Meta, to ensure that wrongly motivated setbacks will not undermine society-wide efforts to protect the integrity of our digital communication environment.