Meta’s fact-checking partners say they were “shocked” by the decision to ax them

Meta’s fact-checking partners claim they were “shocked” by the company’s decision Give up third-party validation on Facebook, Instagram, and Threads In favor of the community feedback model, some say they are now seeking to see if they can bridge the gap this leaves in their funding.

“We heard the news just like everyone else,” says Alan Duke, co-founder and editor-in-chief of fact-checking site Lead Stories, who started working with Meta in 2019. “There’s no advance notice.”

The news was announced that Meta no longer plans to use its services A blog post written by Chief Global Affairs Officer Joel Kaplan Tuesday morning and an accompanying video from Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Instead, the company plans to rely on X-style community feedback, which allows users to flag content they believe is inaccurate or requires further clarification.

dead Partners with dozens of fact-checking organizations And newsrooms around the world, 10 of which are located in the United States, where the new Meta rules will apply for the first time.

“We were shocked by this,” Jesse Stiller, managing editor of Meta’s fact-checking partner Check Your Fact, tells WIRED. His organization began working with Meta in 2019, and has 10 people working in the newsroom. “This was completely unexpected and out of the blue for us. We didn’t know this decision was being considered until Mark dropped the video overnight.

News organizations that have partnered with Meta to address the spread of misinformation on the platform since 2016 are seeking to find out how this change will affect them.

“We have no idea what the future looks like for the website from now on,” says Stiller.

Duke says Lead Stories has a diversified revenue stream and most of its operations are outside the US, but claims the decision will still have an impact on it. “The most painful part of this is the loss of some good, experienced journalists, who will no longer be paid to research false claims on meta platforms,” Duke says.

For others, the financial implications are more serious. An editor at a US-based fact-checking organization working with Meta, who was not authorized to speak on the record, told WIRED that Meta’s decision “will ultimately exhaust us.”

Meta did not respond to a request for comment on its partners’ allegations or the financial impact its decision may have on some organizations.

“Meta didn’t owe fact-checkers anything, but they knew that by pulling this partnership, they were removing a very important source of funding for the ecosystem globally,” says Alexios Mantzarlis, who helped create the first partnerships between fact-checkers and Facebook. 2015 and 2019 Director of the International Fact-Checking Network.

Meta’s partners were also angered by Zuckerberg’s claim that fact-checkers have become too biased.

According to Duke, it is disappointing to hear Mark Zuckerberg accuse the organizations in Meta’s third-party verification program in the US of being “too politically biased.” “Let me check this out. Leading Stories follows the highest standards of journalism and ethics required by the International Fact-Checking Network’s Code of Principles. We verify facts no matter where a false claim appears on the political spectrum.”