What’s behind Big Tech’s embrace of Trump’s return?
The Take
Al Jazeera
4.7 • 748 Ratings
🗓️ 13 January 2025
⏱️ 22 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In a dramatic reversal, Meta has axed its fact-checking program – the latest signalling of Big Tech bowing to incoming president Donald Trump. What does this mean for the spread of misinformation in the US and globally, and for Trump’s control over information in his second term?
In this episode:
- Paris Marx (@parismarx) Host, Tech Won’t Save Us
Episode credits:
This episode was produced by Ashish Malhotra, Sonia Bhagat, and Tamara Khandaker with Phillip Lanos, Spencer Cline, Melanie Marich, Hagir Saleh, and our host Malika Bilal. It was edited by Noor Wazwaz.
The Take production team is Marcos Bartolomé, Sonia Bhagat, Sarí el-Khalili, Tamara Khandaker, Phillip Lanos, Chloe K. Li, Ashish Malhotra, Khaled Soltan, and Amy Walters. Our editorial interns are Melanie Marich and Hagir Saleh. Our host is Malika Bilal. Our engagement producers are Adam Abou-Gad and Vienna Maglio. Aya Elmileik is lead of audience engagement.
Our sound designer is Alex Roldan. Our video editor is Hisham Abu Salah. Alexandra Locke is the Take’s executive producer. Ney Alvarez is Al Jazeera’s head of audio. We’ll be back tomorrow.
Connect with us:
@AJEPodcasts on Instagram, X, Facebook, Threads and YouTube
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Al Jazeera Podcasts. |
| 0:07.0 | Today, a win for Donald Trump. |
| 0:14.9 | Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, announcing they are changing their policies to focus on free speech. |
| 0:23.1 | So why is Big Tech bowing down to the incoming U.S. president? |
| 0:29.2 | I'm Malika Bilal and this is The Take. |
| 0:39.4 | My name is Paris Marks. |
| 0:45.6 | I host the Tech Won't Save Us podcast, and I also write a lot about the tech industry from a critical perspective. |
| 0:48.5 | Paris, welcome back to the take. |
| 0:49.7 | It's always good to have you. |
| 0:58.0 | Meta CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, dropped some pretty big news recently on January 7th. Let me play a little snippet. |
| 1:00.0 | We're going to get rid of fact checkers and replace them with community notes, similar to X, starting in the U.S. |
| 1:07.0 | After Trump first got elected in 2016, the legacy media wrote nonstop about how misinformation |
| 1:13.6 | was a threat to democracy. |
| 1:15.7 | We tried in good faith to address those concerns without becoming the arbiters of truth. |
| 1:20.9 | But the fact checkers have just been too politically biased and have destroyed more trust than |
| 1:25.4 | they've created, especially in the U.S. |
| 1:33.8 | It's been criticized by people who see this as yet another example of big tech aligning itself with the incoming president, Donald Trump. It's safe to say that you are one of those critics, |
| 1:39.4 | though, because on X, last week, you called Facebook a, quote, social cancer and said the days of Mark Zuckerberg, |
| 1:48.1 | shaping discourse and controlling communication must end. So, tell us how you really feel. |
| 1:55.9 | You can see I'm a big supporter, right? |
| 2:01.1 | Yeah, you know, I think there's two things here, right? |
| 2:03.3 | I think on the one hand, you have this decision by Mark Zuckerberg around the fact-checking |
... |
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