Zuck’s Own Board Co-Chair Knifes Him Over MAGA Makeover
Mark Zuckerberg’s shock decision to scrap fact-checking on Facebook and Instagram has sparked concern and outrage—including from inside the top ranks of the company.
Michael McConnell, co-chair of Meta’s Oversight Board, said in an interview Friday that the move looks like “buckling to political pressure.”
“I would have liked to have seen these reforms laid out in less contentious and partisan times, so that they would be considered on the merits rather than… Donald Trump is president and now they’re caving in,” McConnell told NPR.
According to him, neither he nor the board, an international group of experts in law, human rights, and journalism, were told about the new policy in advance.
Meta executives, however, allegedly informed Trump officials about the change in policy prior to the announcement, a source with knowledge of the conversations told The New York Times.
On Tuesday, Meta announced it would be ending its fact-checking program, aimed at stopping the proliferation of disinformation accross its platforms. The move is the latest of Zuckerberg’s several strategy shifts in response to what he called a “cultural tipping point” from the 2024 election
“It’s time to get back to our roots around free expression,” Zuckerberg said in his announcement. He added that the company’s old policy had “reached a point where it’s just too many mistakes and too much censorship.”
The Meta exec explained that it would rely on users to correct inaccurate or false information, in a manner akin to X’s “Community Notes,” taking a backseat to more political content.
Although Zuckerberg acknowledged that the new program would “catch less bad stuff,” he argued “we’ll also reduce the number of innocent people’s posts and accounts that we accidentally take down.”
McConnell, meanwhile, appeared less than convinced by Meta’s new plan.
“I’m not, you know, overly confident that this is going to be the solution. There is really no magic bullet to this problem,” he said.
Regardless of efficacy, McConnell described the optics of Zuckerberg’s strategy as “bad.”
Since Donald Trump’s election victory, the Meta chief has joined a growing number of tycoons cozying up to the MAGA candidate. Zuckerberg dined with Trump at Mar-a-Lago in November and later donated $1 million to the president-elect’s inauguration. And, on Monday, he announced Dana White, a close ally of Trump, would join the Meta board.
