Cause for Concern
Despite Meta’s upbeat insistence that all will be fine, there are rising voices of concern. Indeed the co-chair of Meta’s own oversight board told BBC News that there were “huge problems” with what had been announced. Helle Thorning-Schmidt spoke about worries that marginalized groups could be targeted. She went as far as to state that there were “extremely dangerous times ahead” for social media users and democracy.
Holding X’s model up as an exemplar is hardly confidence building after all. Elon Musk, owner of X, has slashed his moderation team, welcomed back banned users (including Donald Trump) and the platform has seen a terrifying spike in hateful activity, including racist slurs.
Concerns about content have been so high that advertisers voted with their feet and have left the platform in their droves.
Zuckerberg and team will be watching the impact of the new model in the US. Meta has chosen to use its home country as a testing ground, and hasn’t rolled it out in any other nation. This is, perhaps, not least because the EU is already stating its concerns.
This new moderation model is going to be received very differently outside of the US. Other countries will be monitoring what happens to content stateside and will no doubt be feeding back any concerns to Meta.
