President Joe Biden on Friday slammed Meta’s decision to end its fact-checking program, calling it “really shameful.”
While answering questions from reporters following remarks about the economy, Biden said the move would allow “things that are simply not true” to be read by millions of people.
“It’s just completely contrary to everything America is about. We want to tell the truth. We haven’t always done it as a nation. We want to tell the truth,” Biden said.
“The idea that, you know, a billionaire can buy something and say, ‘By the way, we’re not gonna fact check anything,’ and you know, you have millions of people reading, going online, reading this stuff,” he continued. “Anyway, I think it’s really shameful.”
Meta did not immediately respond to a request for comment Friday evening.
Biden’s comments come after California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who has faced criticism from conservatives for his actions prior to and since the outbreak of wildfires across much of Los Angeles, argued that there has not been enough of a crackdown on disinformation surrounding the fires.
“I ask you: We’ve got to deal with this misinformation. There are hurricane-force winds of mis- and disinformation. Lies. People want to divide this country, and we’re gonna have to address that as well,” Newsom told Biden on Friday during a briefing on the fires.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced Tuesday that the company’s social media platforms would end their fact-checking program and replace it with a user-driven system similar to X’s “Community Notes.” He also announced that Facebook and Instagram would relax rules related to political content.
Zuckerberg said during an episode of “The Joe Rogan Experience” released Friday that Biden administration officials had berated Facebook staff when making requests to remove content from the platform.
“Basically, these people from the Biden administration would call up our team and, like, scream at them and curse,” Zuckerberg said. “It just got to this point where we were like, ‘No, we’re not gonna, we’re not gonna take down things that are true. That’s ridiculous.’”
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment about Zuckerberg’s remarks.
In a letter to Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan last year, Zuckerberg said the White House “repeatedly pressured” Facebook to remove posts about Covid-19, “including humor and satire.”
“I believe the government pressure was wrong, and I regret that we were not more outspoken about it,” the Meta CEO wrote. “I also think we made some choices that, with the benefit of hindsight and new information, we wouldn’t make today.”
Meta announced it had donated $1 million to President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration fund after Zuckerberg met with Trump at his Mar-a-Lago residence following the election.
