Head of the German Federal Network Agency, Klaus Müller has subtly threatened sanctions against Meta for dropping Fact-checkers.
Müller in an X post on 8 January said that while Meta is free to not collaborate with Fact-checkers, its risk of facing sanctions will increase in the European Union if it doesn’t.
Müller, who is a member of the Green Party in Germany added that alternatively, the company must prove that it is taking other ‘risk-minimizing’ measures considered as effective as Fact-checkers to not be sanctioned.
Why Meta dumped Fact-checkers
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg on January 7 announced that Meta social platforms like Facebook and Instagram will stop using Fact-checkers to moderate content and will henceforth use community notes.
According to Zuckerberg, the gesture is a way of bringing back free speech and self-expression on its platforms, something X has imbibed for a while now.
The European Union is known for its strict and sometimes unorthodox regulations concerning social media use, which has cost Meta a lot in the past.
The insistence on the use of Fact-checkers is purportedly to curb misinformation as part of election guidelines in the region.
However, the third party moderator may have succeeded more in suppressing free speech, which is why Meta is switching to community notes to retain its users.
New sanctions on the way?
Meta deciding to use community notes instead of Fact-checkers is a bold move that has received wide acceptance among social media users.
However if Zuckerberg sticks to the decision, Meta may be facing more sanctions coming from the European Union, as the government seems determined to ensure Fact-checkers are retained.
An option would be to bar EU member countries from accessing Meta platforms, but this will come at a great cost as there are hundreds of millions of users from the region.
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