The company has no plans to stop fact-checking in the EU and will review the EU’s content moderation obligations before making any changes, according to a request from POLITICO.
The move comes as Meta and other tech giants seek to get closer to President-elect Donald Trump’s incoming administration in Washington. Mehta also put the longtime Republican in charge of global policy and added President Trump ally Dana White to its board.
Facebook launched a fact-checking system with external partners in December 2016 in response to growing criticism of its role in the U.S. presidential election, which Donald Trump won for the first time.
Other platforms, such as Twitter, also began using outside fact checkers until Elon Musk acquired the platform in 2022. The site has introduced a feature that allows users to add community notes to viral posts in place of an external checker.
In addition to social networks Facebook and Instagram, Meta also owns and operates the WhatsApp Messenger platform.
The move comes less than two weeks before the inauguration of the new Trump administration in the United States, and Musk will also take on a new role overseeing the newly created Department of Government Efficiency.
This article has been updated with Meta’s clarification that these changes will not be rolled out in the EU at this time.
