Andrew Selepak Comments on the Elimination of Fact-Checking on Facebook

Andrew Selepak, University of Florida College of Journalism and Communications Media Production, Management, and Technology associate instructional professor, was quoted in “Meta Ditches Fact-Checkers for Community Policing, Lifts Ban on Political Speech” posted on abcnews4.com on Jan. 7.

The story focuses on Facebook’s parent company scrapping its third-party fact-checking program. Meta will now rely on a “community notes” form of content moderation.

Selepak says that Mark Zuckerberg likely has multiple reasons for implementing changes to Facebook’s fact-checking policies.

“I’m not saying that they’re changing the moderation policy solely because Trump got elected, but I don’t think it can be dismissed, the impact of Trump winning [has effected) a lot of decisions,” Selepak said. “Zuckerberg is trying to get on Trump’s good side. I don’t think he wants to be left out from potentially having some kind of influence over Trump, especially seeing how strong of an influence [Elon] Musk has,” Selepak said.

According to Selepak, Facebook is still the king of social media, but it’s not as cool as it once was.

“You can only see so many pictures of your friend’s baby or your friend’s birthday pictures or your third cousin’s graduation pics before you go to another platform,” Selepak said.

Posted: January 14, 2025
Category: Alumni News, College News
Tagged as: Andrew Selepak, Facebook, Fact-Checking, Meta, Social Media