Key events
Former US government disinformation fighter accuses Zuckerberg of ‘bending the knee’ to Trump as Meta ends factchecking
Nina Jankowicz, a former homeland security official tasked with fighting disinformation, said Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg’s decision to end factchecking on his platforms was a “bending of the knee” to Donald Trump.
“Let’s be clear – the factcheckers have not ‘been’ politically biased as Zuckerberg 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,” said Jankowicz, who know leads the American Sunlight Project, an anti-disinformation group.
“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 implications are going to be widespread. Factchecking was not a panacea to disinformation on Facebook but it was an important part of moderation. Bumpers are fully off the lane now. Fact checks don’t suppress speech, fact checks are actually more speech.”
She also noted that the end of factchecking has implications for news outlets worldwide, as several had deals with Meta to assess content on its platforms:
Facebook has already contributed to the demise of journalism and this will be the final nail in the coffin; newsrooms – especially outside the US where subscription models are difficult sells – get grants from Facebook to provide factchecks. That money allows them to do other journalism!
In his TechScape newsletter that came out this morning, the Guardian’s Blake Montgomery reflected on how the departure from Meta of former UK deputy prime minister Nick Clegg was a sign that a big shift was in the offing at the global social media network. Here’s more from his newsletter, which you can sign up for here:
Nick Clegg, the former deputy prime minister of the United Kingdom, is now the former head of global affairs at Meta. He announced his resignation on Thursday after six years at the tech giant. He spent two years in the company’s top policy job.
In the announcement of his departure, Clegg wrote: “It truly has been an adventure of a lifetime! … I hope I have played some role in seeking to bridge the very different worlds of tech and politics.” He sold almost $19m worth of Meta shares during his time at the company, and he holds about $21m more. He may return to British politics, as the party he once led, the Liberal Democrats, won a record number of seats at the general election last year.
You can see in Clegg’s book titles how he was a politician of a less polarized era: Politics: Between the Extremes (and How to Stop Brexit (And Make Britain Great Again). He made neither of his two shots on goal with these books: we live in extreme times, and Brexit was not stopped. Donald Trump is president of the US once again, and Meta’s home country has shifted further to the right than when Trump first won the White House. The former Facebook chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg, so well connected in Democratic circles, isn’t even on Meta’s board any longer. Clegg no longer fits the times.
Clegg is a centrist, asserting in 2011 that his party’s politics were that of the “radical centre”. More than a dozen years later, political centrism has collapsed, unable to compete with the superlative appeal of the extremes, especially on Facebook.
Clegg is also a globalist in a time of protectionism and nationalism, having managed the European Commission’s trade negotiations with China and Russia in his earlier career. A global policy perspective makes financial sense at Meta, which boasts users in every cranny of the world. Such a viewpoint runs counter to “America First”, which is a problem when Mark Zuckerberg is giving $1m to Trump’s inaugural fund and showing off Meta Ray-Bans over dinner at Mar-a-Lago.
Meta points to Trump’s return as it ends factchecking project
Meta is ending its practice of having factcheckers weigh in on disputed content on platforms like Facebook, with company leaders citing Donald Trump’s return to power in the United States as a reason for ending the program.
The social media giant rolled out the factchecking program in the wake of Trump’s first election victory in 2016, which coincided with an increase in inflammatory and inaccurate content on its platforms, often from conservatives.
In an interview given exclusively to conservative outlet Fox News to announce the change, Joel Kaplan, the chief global affairs officer of Meta who is a longtime Republican operative, said: “We have a new administration coming in that is far from pressuring companies to censor and [is more] a huge supporter of free expression.”
Founder Mark Zuckerberg said the factchecks would be replaced with community notes like those seen on X, which is owned by close Trump associate Elon Musk. In a video announcing the change, Zuckerberg said the “factcheckers have just been too politically biased and have destroyed more trust than they’ve created”.
He also added that Meta would “work with President Trump to push back on governments around the world that are going after American companies and pushing to censor more”.
Here’s more on the decision:
Donald Trump has vowed to pardon January 6 defendants upon taking office, and the Guardian’s Michael Sainato reports that a militia leader who was given a long sentence over the attack has appealed to the president-elect not to pass him over:
Enrique Tarrio, the former leader of the Proud Boys group who received a 22-year sentence for seditious conspiracy related to the January 6 attack on the US Capitol in 2021, has formally asked Donald Trump for a pardon.
A jury convicted Tarrio of helping to orchestrate the insurrection. At the time of the attack, Tarrio had been banned from the city by prosectors for burning a stolen banner from a historic Black church in December 2020 during a protest march against Trump’s election loss.
Prosecutors said Tarrio was the driving force for organizing hundreds of Proud Boys to participate in the attack on January 6, and several top lieutenants in the group – a far-right militant organization – were at the frontlines of the violence.
US district judge Tim Kelly, a Trump appointee, sentenced Tarrio to 22 years in prison after his conviction. It is the longest sentence of any January 6 defendant.
Trump lawyers suggest decision on releasing special counsel report should be made by incoming president
Attorneys for Donald Trump have asked attorney general Merrick Garland to stop special counsel Jack Smith from completing his report detailing his investigations of the president-elect. Should Garland decline to do that, they propose that the decision to release the report be made by whoever becomes attorney general when Trump takes office.
The position is likely to be filled by Pam Bondi, the former top prosecutor in Florida whom Trump nominated to lead the justice department after his initial pick, former congressman Matt Gaetz, declined the job amid allegations of sexual misconduct and drug use.
We’ll find out if Garland will heed Trump’s request. The president-elect’s attorneys have also asked a federal judge to intervene and block the release of Smith’s report. Here’s more on their requests, from the Guardian’s Hugo Lowell:
Trump moves to block release of special counsel report as sentencing on hush-money sentencing nears
Good morning, US politics blog readers. Donald Trump may be less than two weeks away from returning to the White House, but his lawyers are keeping busy with motions to frustrate the final developments in his lingering criminal cases. Yesterday, they asked New York judge Juan Merchan to delay the president-elect’s sentencing on the 34 felony business fraud charges he was convicted of last year, but their motion was denied and the hearing is expected to take place on Friday. The case, brought by the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin Bragg, was the only one of Trump’s four criminal indictments to go to trial before his election victory in November. His prosecution in Georgia for allegedly meddling in the state’s election result four years ago has stalled, likely permanently, while special counsel Jack Smith dropped the charges he brought against Trump for allegedly hiding classified documents, and plotting to overturn the 2020 election.
However, justice department regulations mandate that Smith release a report at the end of his investigations, which could bring to light damaging evidence about Trump’s actions. Late yesterday, the president-elect’s attorneys asked outgoing attorney general Merrick Garland to prevent the report’s completion. We’ll let you know if Garland makes his response known today.
Here’s what else is going on:
-
Donald Trump Jr is scheduled to arrive in Greenland today, the massive island that his father has talked about the United States buying from Denmark. We’ll see how that visit goes.
-
Jimmy Carter will lie in state at the US Capitol today, with Kamala Harris laying a wreath on his casket and eulogizing him at 4.30pm ET.
-
The House of Representatives will vote on the Laken Riley Act, an early step in the forthcoming Republican crackdown on undocumented immigrants that would mandate they be taken into custody by immigration authorities over theft charges.
