It appears that Meta has recently made the decision to remove the fact-checking option on opinion content on its platforms. This makes a shift in the constant misinformation on social media.
Releasing opinion based posts from inspection creates a loophole where anyone can exploit or spread false information/narratives under someone’s personal perspective.
CEO of Meta Facebook, In, Mark Zuckerberg has argued that this policy change protects free speech, it gets rid of the integrity of online conversations. Emphasizing, “citing a shifting political and social landscape and desire to embrace free speech.” (Horvath, 2025)
Fact checking never involved shutting down opinions or getting rid of freedom of speech but rather removed bias and ensured that false claims weren’t disguised as the truth. With the removal of this, misinformation can now spread and thrive based on what is being published on these Meta platforms.
This policy change raises concerns about the role of social media platforms in restraining someone from misrepresenting the truth. If a post is framed as an opinion, does that mean that it should be free from factual accountability? For example, if a political commentator falsely claims that an election was “rigged” or “stolen”.
Under Meta’s new policy, statements like these escape fact checking only because they are phrased as opinions rather than statements of facts.
Meta introduced a system called “Community Notes” which allows users to add context to posts that are misleading which shifts the responsibility of content from independent checkers.
Though embracing free speech is a major concern, opinions on news should be phrased as such, rather than promoting biased views that favor a particular side and are framed as news.
This is important because many people rely on social media for their news. If there is no outlet where people are able to determine whether or not something is real or fake, it creates miscommunication and causes misleading claims to spread.
This makes it harder for someone to determine if the news is credible or not. In addition, this allows for falsehoods and information to spread without being checked.
Written By: Leslie Negrete, Opinions Editor