Meta has ‘no immediate plan’ to end fact-checking in Australia, Communications Minister Michelle Rowland says

The social media giant’s update comes a week after it said it was ending fact-checking on Facebook and Instagram.

Meta has told the Albanese government it has “no immediate plan” to end fact-checking on its platforms in Australia, Communications Minister Michelle Rowland says.

The tech giant said last week it was ditching its third-party fact-checking program on Facebook and Instagram in favour of an X-style community notes system.

The announcement sparked mixed reactions across the world, with some claiming it as a win for free speech and others warning of the consequences of viral falsehoods going unchecked.

The tech giant is ditching its third-party fact-checking program on Facebook and Instagram. Picture: Drew Angerer / AFP

“We are aware as a government that, starting in the US, that Meta will be ending its third-party fact-checking program,” Ms Rowland told the ABC on Tuesday.

“We have been advised by Meta Australia that there’s no immediate plan to end the third-party fact-checking program in Australia, including prior to a federal election, but I think that Australians will be questioning the amount of speech, the amount of civic content, for example, that Meta has indicated people will continue to see on their feeds.

“As a government … we make clear that the tech companies do have that social, economic and democratic responsibility, regardless of where companies operate, they must still abide by Australian laws and Meta has indicated to the government that they intend to do that.”

Communications Minister Michelle Rowland says Meta has ‘no immediate plan’ to end fact-checking on its platforms in Australia. Picture: NewsWire / Martin Ollman

Meta introduced third-party fact-checking in 2016 as a way to counter misinformation flooding platforms amid concerns false claims turbocharged by social media could manipulate political discourse.

It engaged established media organisations as well as independent fact-checking groups to check viral claims made on its platforms.

The task of sorting fact from fiction only continued to grow in the informational chaos of the Covid-19 pandemic and public trust collapsed globally.

Meta chief executive Mark Zuckerberg last week put the decision to end the program down to “too many mistakes and too much censorship”.

Originally published as Meta has ‘no immediate plan’ to end fact-checking in Australia, Communications Minister Michelle Rowland says