Rebekah Barnett: The beginning of the end for the 'fact-checker' con?

Depending on which echo chamber you get your news from, this week Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg took steps to either save democracy, or to end it.

In a statement on Tuesday, Zuckerberg (now in his manosphere era) said that the social media giant had over-censored user content with its dragnet algorithms, and it was time to “[restore] free expression on our platforms.”

Brendan O'Neill: Mark Zuckerberg’s bonfire of the orthodoxies

Meta’s scrapping of the fact-checkers proves positive change is in the air.

Move over Elon Musk, another billionaire has hit the headlines. And he didn’t even have to demand the jailing of a prime minister to do so. It’s Mark Zuckerberg, boss of Meta. Yesterday he released the most extraordinary video. Sporting unruly curls, a black tee and dog-tag chain – the uniform of the millennial oligarch – he announced that Meta’s platforms would give their ‘fact-checkers’ the heave-ho and ‘dramatically reduce the amount of censorship’ they carry out. I doubt a more impactful mea culpa will be issued this year.