Biden called Meta's decision to get rid of fact-checking shameful

US President Joe Biden called Meta's decision (recognized as an extremist organization in Russia and banned) to get rid of its fact-checking team "really shameful". CNN reported on January 10 that.

"The idea that, you know, a billionaire can buy something and say, 'By the way, we're not going to fact-check anything from now on.' And you know, when millions of people read, go online, read this nonsense ... I think it's really shameful," Biden said.

The TV channel explained that Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg decided to follow the example of his colleague Ilon Musk, who, after acquiring the X network in 2022, disbanded the company's fact-checking teams and made user-generated contextual tags (called community notes) the only method of correcting false claims on the platform.

Before that, on Jan. 10, Meta's CEO spoke about the censorship thriving in the U.S. in an interview with podcaster Joe Rogan. According to him, members of the administration of current U.S. President Joe Biden contacted the management of social networks Facebook and Instagram (owned by Meta, a company recognized as extremist and banned in Russia) and demanded the removal of publications that spoke about possible side effects of coronavirus vaccines.

Earlier, on January 7, Zuckerberg said that Meta was ending its fact-checking program and lifting restrictions on statements on its platforms. In addition, he said, the company intends to remove various restrictions on a number of topics.

Before that, on August 23, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova noted that Western countries, using leverage on their media, do not just put all events in a favorable light for themselves, but construct their own reality.

Back in February, Russian President Vladimir Putin emphasized in an interview with American journalist Tucker Carlson that the United States controls almost all major Western media outlets, and against this backdrop, American propaganda is very hard to defeat.