Fact Checkers Preparing For Layoffs, Bankruptcy as Meta Withdraws Support

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Meta’s abrupt pivot away from paid third-party fact-checkers has left these controversial “watchdogs” scrambling to stay afloat.

Key Facts:

– On January 7, 2025, Meta announced it would abandon its fact-checking program on Facebook and Instagram.
– Check Your Fact, PolitiFact, and others depended heavily on Meta’s funding to operate.
– Critics say these fact-checkers practiced political bias by cherry-picking what to examine.
– Meta’s new approach mirrors X’s Community Notes, emphasizing user-driven content moderation.
– Several organizations, including Lead Stories, are now facing layoffs or complete shutdowns.

The Rest of The Story:

Meta once poured more than $100 million into what it called an “independent fact-checking industry.”

These groups were paid to flag supposedly false information and issue warnings to users.

However, conservative critics have long questioned the neutrality of these so-called arbiters of truth.

Many Americans felt that content was often flagged or demoted based on political leanings, rather than clear, unbiased evidence.

Joel Kaplan, Meta’s chief global affairs officer, publicly blasted these organizations for veering into partisan territory.

His remarks fueled the suspicion that Meta’s contracted fact-checkers were not fairly judging content, but instead targeting certain viewpoints.

Mark Zuckerberg’s promise to “restore free expression” brought an abrupt end to the fact-checking program, leaving outlets like PolitiFact reeling from the sudden cut.

While leaders at these fact-checking outlets claim they were essential to guiding online discourse, many on the right see this turn of events as a necessary housecleaning.

PolitiFact admitted it relied on Meta for at least five percent of its budget, while others, such as Check Your Fact, fear closure in the coming months.

Lead Stories, employing ex-CNN staff, recently signed a new contract with Meta but received little warning before the shake-up.

The group says it will have to downsize now that money from Meta is drying up.

The Bottom Line:

For years, many conservatives argued that partisan fact-checkers held too much power over social media.

Meta’s withdrawal of funding strips these groups of financial support and exposes the questionable role they played in moderating public debate.

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By replacing them with a more open, user-based system, Meta is giving the public a bigger voice—whether fact-checkers like it or not.