Democracia em Xeque Institute
Contradicting its previous actions – including its repeated apologies in parliament to victims of violence and harm on its platform – and the frameworks established by Facebook to mitigate the prevalence of misinformation and disinformation nine years after the Cambridge Analytica scandal (2016), it terminates its partnership with fact-checking initiatives, considering them biased. It simplifies its content moderation policies to accommodate radical and extremist expressions of beliefs about gender and immigration, topics recognized for their high potential for mobilizing the nationalist right and far right in Europe and the world. It also considers its own content moderation policies and online violation detection systems as censorship mechanisms.
Not satisfied, he announces changes to the recommendation of political content that may further increase individuals’ exposure to controversial, contentious and extremist speech; and explicitly adopts the twisted and convenient Trumpist bias as a legitimate approach to the principle of “freedom of expression”, accusing Europe of institutionalizing censorship and inhibiting innovation, Latin America having countries with secret courts, China banning apps and the Biden administration incurring censorship. This strategy of Meta platforms to align themselves with the MAGA (Make America Great Again) movement agenda helps in getting closer to the Trump administration and, consequently, saving thousands of dollars from cuts in the partnership with fact-checkers and moderation mechanisms, in addition to helping to avoid antitrust trials.
Meta's announcement was heavily criticized by fact-checking initiatives and journalism. On Thursday, January 9, we published a report describing the repercussions of the announcement on social media (access here). On the one hand, actors linked to the progressive camp expressed concern about the scenario of disinformation and the distortion of the meaning of freedom of expression as “freedom to lie”. On the radical right, actors considered the measure a victory for freedom of expression and the end of censorship on social networks. On Telegram, specifically, users echoed Trump’s own praise of Meta’s new measures and the appointment of Dana White, CEO of the UFC and a close ally of Donald Trump, to the company’s board. Another issue that resonated enthusiastically in the radical right camp is the change in Meta’s policy, which now allows “allegations of mental illness or abnormalities to be associated with gender or sexual orientation”, directly affecting the LGBTQIAPN+ population and responding to the onslaught anti-gender of global radicalism.
A new era is beginning in which the owners of technology giants openly express their alignment with the ideological and dogmatic agenda of a radical populist president, following the trend of alt-techs. After declaring support and getting directly involved in the electoral campaign, Elon Musk, owner of X, will assume the position of Secretary of State. Along with this, Zuckerberg declared his intention to cooperate with the Trump administration in favor of the national technology industry and in rejecting the sovereignty of third countries to organize and regulate digital activities, even if in favor of guaranteeing human and digital rights. As CEO of Meta, Zuckerberg had already expressed regret for implementing content moderation policies during the Covid-19 crisis on the recommendation of the government and the WHO, which he considered to have been a form of censorship.
Zuckerberg's speech suggests a shift away from the company's commitment to user safety. In 2016, in the wake of the Cambridge Analytica scandal, Zuckerberg repeatedly reiterated that Facebook's purpose was to connect friends and family, admitted that social networks could pose new dangers to democracies and acknowledged that it was slow to identify the misuse of the platform in the elections. From then on, it began implementing several efforts to offer a hyper-personalized experience linked to users' personal interests. It reduced the reach of news and company posts (2018), the appearance of political content in the feed (2021), stopped recommending political content and groups (2021), etc. By changing course, he goes on to state that he created Facebook to “give people a voice” and “protect free speech,” but that in recent years he has been led to censor things by the government and traditional media, in a “clearly political” behavior, as a way of dealing with damages arising from online content. In this line, he compares content moderation to censorship and legitimizes the presence of various harmful speeches on Meta platforms as a manifestation of freedom of speech. He also favors the amplification of these speeches by once again privileging the recommendation of radical political content on Meta platforms. In addition, it is important to reaffirm that the fact that groups identify themselves as pro-free speech does not mean that they understand and practice the concept; the opposite is often true. On Twitter, for example, Elon Musk has been going after anyone who criticizes him or thinks differently, including conservatives and journalists.
Along the same lines, as previously stated, Zuckerberg has begun to downplay content moderation activities, which are equated to a form of censorship. Until then, in its community standards, Meta recognized that the internet has created new forms of abuse and the need to limit freedom of expression based on a commitment to authenticity, security, privacy, and the dignity of users. Therefore, the community standards included a series of prohibited content, including specific rules for misinformation. Despite this, Meta will now lift restrictions on topics about immigration and gender, although it has not provided details on how this will be done and how it will impact policies regarding hate speech and the dehumanization of individuals. Although Facebook and Instagram are classified as very large online platforms by the DSA, as they have more than 45 million monthly active users in the European Union, they run the risk of operating at the service of alt-techs, becoming even more of a gateway for conspiracy and extremist ideas, with minimal content moderation.
Along with the application of content moderation policies, which aim to inhibit content and behavior that violates the platforms' privacy rules, Meta has established a pioneering fact-checking program (Third Party Fact Checking) as a supplementary way to contain abuse and preserve user safety. Thus, over the past few years, users have had the opportunity to more easily access fact-checks related to viral content, based on a notice attached to the post. In this case, if the content does not violate the platform's rules, it is not removed, but content classified as false has its reach reduced, in order to inhibit visibility. The initiatives are, in their entirety, nonpartisan and audited by the International Fact-Checking Network. Despite the extensive experience and guarantee of professionalism in the sector, Zuckerberg is now arguing that fact-checking initiatives have behaved in a politically biased manner and eroded, rather than built, trust. Zuckerberg has also allied himself with Trump and Elon Musk in discrediting journalism.
The abrupt change in Meta's management and governance highlights the difficult task of balancing private interests and preserving individual and collective rights through the regulation of digital technology. As was already common at Gettr and later even more common at Truth Social, owners and executives of digital platforms do not shy away from expressing radical right-wing ideological and partisan opinions, which was followed by Elon Musk at the helm of X, in order to behave as privileged editors and distributors of political information on these services. As already questioned on other occasions, if an internet provider not only provides a complex socio-technical infrastructure, over which it does not have full control, but also selects, produces and broadcasts messages, should it be considered a producer and editor of the platform's own content? What implications does Musk's political activism on X or the return of political content recommendations on Facebook have on users' exposure to incorrect information and disinformation campaigns? How can we design regulatory models that encompass anti-democratic demands and curb authoritarian escalations in a context of relaxed content moderation policies and the alignment of big tech with the Trump administration?
In this sense, at the Democracia em Xeque Institute, we reinforce the need for an even greater commitment from societies to promoting a healthy digital civic environment that respects democratic principles, human rights, and civilizing milestones. The Internet Civil Rights Framework and the General Data Protection Law are important instruments for guaranteeing fundamental rights in the digital public sphere in Brazil. Now, more than ever, it is necessary to move towards a state of consensus around a regulatory framework for the activities of big techs in Brazil and on a global scale. We urge the Brazilian State to seek spaces for convergence and alliance with other nation-states, such as Australia, Canada, and the United Kingdom, as well as with supranational entities, such as the European Union and Unasur, which are concerned with defending the integrity of information and guaranteeing the right to plural and truthful information. We emphasize that states and multilateral organizations should never act as “arbiters of truth,” nor as accomplices in lies and the instrumentalization of a permanent state of deception. This is the challenge that lies ahead.
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