Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.) said Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg met with President-elect Trump a day ahead of announcing the social media network will eliminate its fact-checking program to prioritize free speech.
“Mark met with President Trump the day before he announced that they were going to change the way they do censorship, essentially,” Mullin told political commentator Benny Johnson during a segment of “The Benny Show” posted to Johnson’s account on the social platform X.
“The big announcement that he made the other day, President Trump, and spoke about that, and Mark had been down to see the president several times already,” Mullin added.
The Hill reached out to Meta and the Trump transition team for comment.
Mullin was referring to Zuckerberg’s Tuesday announcement in which he revealed a series of changes to Meta’s content moderation policies, including the replacement of its fact-checking program with a user-driven community notes system.
The fact-checking program, which enlisted the help of third-party fact-checkers, was put into place shortly after the 2016 presidential election when Russia tried to use Facebook to influence the election.
Zuckerberg is now citing the most recent 2024 presidential election as a driving force in eliminating the same program, claiming governments and other entities pushed his company and other social media platforms to censor content.
“The recent elections also feel like a cultural tipping point towards, once again, prioritizing speech,” he said Tuesday. “So we’re going to get back to our roots and focus on reducing mistakes, simplifying our policies and restoring free expression on our platforms.”
Meta platforms will now rely on users to send in notes or corrections to posts that are potentially misleading or need more context.
The change sparked immediate criticism from Democrats, who accused Zuckerberg and his company of bending the knee to Trump. The president-elect has vowed to fight against censorship on social media platforms.
Other tech advocacy groups have raised concerns that the switch to a community notes system will make it easier for misinformation and disinformation to spread on the platform.
Mullin’s comments were first highlighted by Mediaite.
