With Donald Trump back in power, it is with their finger on the seam that the big American tech companies have wisely and quickly aligned themselves with the precepts of the future American president advocating "total" freedom of expression, even if this frees up the most extremist speech on the right. Meta, which knows it is targeted by the future tenant of the White House, wanted to show its credentials by completely reversing its moderation policy.
Goodbye fact-checkers (which were, it must be admitted, quite discreet), hello "Community Notes" like on X/Twitter. In other words, it will be Facebook and Instagram users who will have to make corrections to content that may contain false or misleading information.
While this new policy only applies to the United States, Mark Zuckerberg has been very clear: he intends to "work with President Trump to oppose foreign governments that target American companies to further censor." In essence, the CEO and founder of Meta, who has pledged total allegiance to the future power in place, would like all countries in the world to align themselves with the principle of freedom of expression in force in the United States.
This promises a serious collision with the rules in force in Europe, particularly the Digital Services Regulation (DSA), which restricts the moderation of major online platforms. Twitter and Elon Musk could also pay the price fairly quickly.
Paris's "concern"
France expresses its "concern" about this decision. The Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs deplores Meta's decision "to question the usefulness of fact-checking to limit the circulation of false information." Paris intends to maintain its vigilance regarding compliance with the company's obligations under the DSA, which is "an integral part of the proper democratic functioning of the EU, and to protect our fellow citizens from foreign interference and manipulation of information."
The Quai d'Orsay also points out that while freedom of expression is protected in France as in Europe, it cannot be "confused with a right to virality that would authorize the dissemination of inauthentic content reaching millions of users without filtering or moderation."
The European Commission, for its part, rejected Mark Zuckerberg's claims that "Europe [was] adopting an increasing number of laws institutionalizing censorship and making innovation difficult." "We absolutely refute any allegations of censorship," a spokesperson told Reuters. The regulator points out that the DSA does not require platforms to remove lawful content. But the text requires digital giants to remove content that could be harmful, particularly to children and European democracies.
Meta could, however, abandon its fact-checking policy in Europe and replace it with this new system of verification by users of the platform. The American group will first have to carry out a risk assessment and submit it to the Commission. The EU does not prescribe the form that content moderation should take, so a “Community Notes” type format would be appropriate.
“Whatever model a platform chooses, it has to be effective, and that’s what we’re looking at… So we’re checking the effectiveness of the content moderation measures or policies that platforms have adopted and implemented here in the EU,” the spokesperson said.
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