Latin American Fact-Checkers Brace for Meta’s Next Moves

This 180-degree change is in response to Donald Trump’s impending second presidential term and the manner of the race. Such as X’s community notes. Meta decided not to invest any more money in its program. Now, it expects Facebook and Instagram users to decide for themselves what content is misleading or not.

In the statement in which Zuckerberg announced that he would dismantle the program, he said that fact-checkers have succumbed to political bias, destroying more trust than they have built in the United States. However, for Laura Zomar, the former director of Czechado (one of the Spanish-speaking verification agencies) and Latamchekia, and now its leader Fact checked (a verification media aimed at the Latino community in the United States), Zuckerberg’s statements are not surprising and he has no scientific evidence for his claims. “Far from censoring, fact-checkers add context,” Zomar says “We never advocate removing content. We want citizens to have better information to make their own decisions.”

Zomar, who is skeptical of how the program’s elimination could benefit Meta, emphasized that the company contradicts itself by ending the fact-checking program, especially because it has demonstrated its positive results in the past. Zomar also agrees with IFCN’s current director, Angie Drobnik Holan, who on LinkedIn postWrote: “It is unfortunate that this decision comes in the wake of extreme political pressure from a new administration and its supporters. Factcheckers are not biased in their work—this line of attack comes from those who think they should be able to exaggerate and lie. Without rebuttal or contradiction. .”

As Trump, just days away from his inauguration, threatens mass deportations of immigrants, the Hispanic community faces a potential new wave of confusion. “The evidence makes us think it’s going to be bad. We’ll see until it’s implemented, but we can say that, during the Trump campaign, one of the main misleading narratives was against immigrants, like they said immigrants would cheat. That was a lie given our past information.” think that this decision will likely negatively affect Latino communities in the United States,” Zomar told Wired en Español.

Anti-immigrant rhetoric isn’t the only thing endangering ecosystems. In an age where deepfake video and audio scams are rampant, having effective information will be a priority

Spanish-language fact-checking media at risk

The Latin American news ecosystem, with its economic vulnerability, is at risk. “Facebook’s fact-checker program payments still kept fact-checking companies and news organizations afloat with a fact-checking department. So I think that, perhaps, if these companies don’t diversify soon, a lot of them will suffer. Disappear. ,” said Pablo Medina, Chaos Information Research Editor Latin American Center for Investigative Journalism, CLIP.

Although the decision applies only to the United States for now, the project’s disappearance has alarmed the Hispanic media ecosystem. “The attack published by Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg on what he called a ‘secret court’ that promotes platform censorship in Latin America – a false claim – indicates that Brazil is at the heart of the company’s concerns,” Tai Nalon said. CEO of Aos FatosOne of the most important fact-checking media in the Global South.

“This is completely consistent with the rhetoric of Donald Trump, a regular critic of journalism and fact-checking,” Nalon said. “The arguments Zuckerberg has used have been widely misused by the right-wing around the world to justify effective anti-disinformation initiatives. . . . Since there has never been dissatisfaction with the work of fact-checkers before, it appears to be a move aimed at political gain. We know that Meta is facing antitrust litigation in the US and being close to the government could be an advantage for the company.”

Meanwhile, as Laura Zomer points out, past evidence gives the news ecosystem cause for concern.

Wired en Español contacted Meta for this story Through a media representative, the company replied with this Statement of Decision (in Spanish) And said that this is not applicable to WhatsApp and only for US verifiers.

This story originally appeared Wired in Spanish and translated from the Spanish.