Shorouk Express
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex have waded into the online misinformation row as they urged Mark Zuckerberg to reverse changes made to Meta’s fact-checking policies.
Changes made by the tech boss last week have seen sites such as Facebook and Instagram scrap its longstanding fact-checking programme in favour of a community notes system similar to that on Elon Musk’s social media platform X.
It is a move that is widely seen as appeasing US president-elect Donald Trump and now allows LGBTQ+ people to be called “mentally ill”.
Now, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have issued an official statement on the matter, saying it should “deeply concern us all.”
“It doesn’t matter whether your views are left, right or somewhere in between—the latest news from Meta about changes to their policies directly undermines free speech,” the couple said in a statement published on their official website.
“Contrary to the company’s talking points, allowing more abuse and normalizing hate speech serves to silence speech and expression, not foster it.”
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It added: “Meta’s recent decisions go directly against its stated mission to “build human connection” and instead prioritize those using the platforms to spread hate, lies and division at the expense of everyone else.”
The couple said they were “alarmed by plans to abandon commitments to diversity and equity”, and also warned the changes to its ‘Hateful Content Policies’ will “foster an environment where abuse and hate speech silence and threaten the voices of whole communities who make up a healthy democracy”.
The statement added: “We urge Meta to reconsider and reinstate policies to protect all users. We also call on leaders across industries to uphold their commitments to integrity and public safety in online spaces, and we applaud leaders who refuse to kowtow to bullying.”
The changes in Meta policy came amid furore over misinformation spread on Musk’s platform, which has seen the Tesla boss become embroiled in a bitter feud with the UK government.
X, formerly known as Twitter, has been repeatedly accused of helping inflame tensions in the UK – from the misinformation spread during last year’s far-right riots to Mr Musk launching an attack on Labour MP Jess Phillips in recent weeks.
Meta will be moving to a community notes based system, similar to the one used on X.
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The changes will affect Facebook and Instagram, the company’s two largest social media platforms which have billions of users, as well as its newer platform Threads.
“We’re going to get back to our roots and focus on reducing mistakes, simplifying our policies and restoring free expression on our platforms,” chief executive Mark Zuckerberg said in a video.
“More specifically, here’s what we’re going to do. First, we’re going to get rid of fact checkers and replace them with community notes similar to X, starting in the US.
“It means that we’re going to catch less bad stuff, but we’ll also reduce the number of innocent people’s posts and accounts that we accidentally take down.”
The Independent has contacted Meta for comment.
