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Facebook Becomes Falsebook: Why I Deleted My Account
No more fact-checks? No thanks.
What finally made me pull the plug on Facebook, after more than 20 years as a user?
Answer: Mark Zuckerberg’s announcement in early January that Facebook would no longer be fact-checking posts via independent, non-partisan third parties. In fact, they would be abandoning fact-checking altogether. This was widely seen as a bow to Donald Trump, and will likely open the floodgates for conspiracy theories and far-right propaganda to flourish unchecked. Just as I quit X when Musk weaponized it for the extreme right, so too do I feel compelled to end my participation in a network that to me has become a threat to democracy.
Facebook has become Falsebook. I’m out.
I don’t buy Zuck’s facetious argument about unimpeded free speech (If you like, you can read about it here, from the horse’s mouth). Can you imagine a newspaper taking the same approach? Saying that in the name of free speech they can’t fact-check their articles? They will leave it to their reader's comments to address falsehoods.
