Biden's short-lived 'disinformation czar' rages at Meta for ditching 'fact checking' censors

President Joe Biden's former disinformation czar has blasted Meta for ditching its fact checkers.

Nina Jankowicz slammed CEO Mark Zuckerberg's decision as a 'full bending of the knee to [Donald] Trump'.

Zuckerberg announced on Tuesday that he would be replacing fact-checkers with a community notes-style system similar to the one seen on rival Elon Musk's X site.

The CEO revealed the move was because, 'fact-checkers have just been too politically biased, and have destroyed more trust than they've created, especially in the U.S.'

However, Jankowicz rejected his suggestion in a tirade on social media platform Bluesky.

'Let’s be clear—the fact checkers have not “been” politically biased as Zuck suggests, but have been *perceived as such* because of politically motivated efforts to smear them, one that Zuck is now participating in and capitulating to,' she

'Facebook has already contributed to the demise of journalism and this will be the final nail in the coffin.

'Zuck’s announcement is a full bending of the knee to Trump and an attempt to catch up to Musk in his race to the bottom.'

The former Executive Director of the Disinformation Governance Board has previously been outspoken in her criticism of Musk, notably around his acquisition of Twitter, now X. 

Jankowicz also insisted that the fact checkers actually helped boost free speech.

'The implications are going to be widespread,' Jankowicz said. 'Fact-checking was not a panacea to disinformation on FB but it was an important part of moderation. Bumpers are fully off the lane now.'

Jankowicz was appointed to her former position in 2022, but resigned just a few months later when board was 'paused' amid bi-partisan criticism.

Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas acknowledged the board’s controversy had become a distraction to the department’s other work, which includes safeguarding U.S. elections, two officials familiar with his decision said.

Announcing the policy change, Meta wrote in a news release that it hoped to return to 'fundamental commitment to free expression'.

'Experts, like everyone else, have their own biases and perspectives. This showed up in the choices some made about what to fact check and how.

'Over time we ended up with too much content being fact checked that people would understand to be legitimate political speech and debate. 

'Our system then attached real consequences in the form of intrusive labels and reduced distribution. A program intended to inform too often became a tool to censor.'

The platform will now rely on community notes, which allow users to add their own context to posts. 

It comes after Trump was banned from Facebook for two years in the wake of the January 6 insurrection.

In 2022, Facebook announced it would stop fact-checking his speeches ahead of his second White House run. 

'The normal state of affairs is that the public should be able to hear from a former President of the United States, and a declared candidate for that office again, on our platforms,' Facebook said in a statement at the time.