Latin American fact-checkers are preparing for Meta’s next moves

This 180-degree change is a response to Donald Trump’s impending second presidential term and the methods of competition, such as X’s Community Notes. Meta decided not to invest any more money in their program. Now, he hopes that Facebook and Instagram users themselves will be the ones to decide what content is disinformation or not.

In the statement where Zuckerberg announced that he would dismantle the program, he said that fact-checkers have succumbed to political bias, destroying more trust than they had created in the United States. However, for Laura Zommer, former director of Chequeado (one of the most important Spanish-language checking organizations) and LatamChequea, and now head of Get checked (a verification media aimed at the Latino community in the United States), Zuckerberg’s statements are not a surprise, and he has no scientific evidence for his claims. “Far from censorship, fact-checkers add context,” says Zommer. “We have never advocated for removing content. We want citizens to have better information to make their decisions.”

Zommer, who is skeptical of how the dissolution of this program could benefit Meta, emphasizes that the company contradicts ending the fact-checking program, especially because it has highlighted its positive results in the past. Zommer also agrees with Angie Drobnic Holan, current director of IFCN, who, in a LinkedIn placewrote: “It is unfortunate that this decision comes in the wake of extreme political pressure from a new administration and its supporters. Factcheckers have not been prejudiced in their work – that line of attack comes from those who feel that they should be able to exaggerate and lie. without refutations or contradictions.

As Trump, a few days after his inauguration, threatens a mass deportation of migrants, the Hispanic community is faced with a possible new wave of disinformation. “The evidence makes us think that this will be bad. Until it is implemented, we will see, but we can say that, during the Trump campaign, one of the main narratives of disinformation was against migrants, such as those who They say that migrants would commit fraud. Past data makes us think that this decision is likely to negatively affect Latino communities in the United States,” Zommer told WIRED in Español.

Anti-immigrant rhetoric isn’t the only thing endangering the ecosystem. In an era where deepfake video and audio scams are spreading, having viable information will be a priority.

Spanish-Speaking Fact-Checking Media at Risk

The Latin American news ecosystem, with its economic vulnerability, is at risk. “The payoff of Facebook’s fact-checking program was always keeping fact-checking organizations and news organizations with a fact-checking section. So I think that, most likely, if these organizations fail to diversify quickly, many of them will disappear, “says Pablo Medina, disinformation research editor at the Latin American Center for Investigative Journalism, CLIP.

While the decision only applies to the United States for now, the disappearance of the project has raised alarm in the Hispanic media ecosystem. “The attack expressed by the CEO of Meta Mark Zuckerberg on what he called “secret courts” that promote the censorship of the platform in Latin America – a false statement – indicates that Brazil is a key focus of the concerns of the company,” says Tai Nalon. CEO of Aos Fatosone of the most important fact-checking media in the global south.

“This is completely in line with the rhetoric of Donald Trump, a regular detractor of journalism and fact-checking,” says Nalon. “The arguments used by Zuckerberg have been widely exploited by the extreme right in the world to delegitimize effective initiatives against disinformation. . Since there has never been dissatisfaction with the work of fact-checkers before, this seems to me a move intended to gain some political advantage. We know that Meta will face antitrust cases in the United States, and being close to the government could be an advantage for the company.”

Meanwhile, as Laura Zommer says, evidence from the past gives the news ecosystem reason to worry.

WIRED in Spanish contacted Meta for this story. Through a media representative, the company responded with the statement (in Spanish) of the decision and said that this does not apply to WhatsApp and is only for US testers.

This story originally appeared WIRED in Spanish and was translated from the Spanish.