What the End of Meta’s Fact-Checking Program Means for the Future of Free Speech
The Political Scene | The New Yorker
WNYC Studios and The New Yorker
4.2 • 3.3K Ratings
🗓️ 10 January 2025
⏱️ 35 minutes
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Summary
The Washington Roundtable discusses Mark Zuckerberg’s decision to end its fact-checking program across Meta’s social-media sites. Instead, Meta will release a tool that allows readers to add context and corrections to posts, similar to the way one can leave a “community note” on X. What does this choice mean for truth online in the coming Trump Administration, and have “alternative facts,” as they were dubbed by Kellyanne Conway in 2017, won out? Plus, free speech in the era of Donald Trump, lawsuits brought against the mainstream media, and how journalists will cover President Trump’s second Administration.
This week’s reading:
- “King Donald and the Presidents at the National Cathedral,” by Susan B. Glasser
- “Why the MAGA Fight Over H-1B Visas Is Crossing Party Lines,” by John Cassidy
- “Lauren Boebert’s Survival Instincts,” by Peter Hessler
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| 0:00.0 | Susan, you actually got to the state funeral. |
| 0:05.3 | Yes, well, I did. |
| 0:07.0 | And I got to confess on the front end. |
| 0:09.0 | I'm obviously not an official lip reader. |
| 0:11.8 | And so I can't tell you what Barack Obama and Donald Trump were actually talking about. |
| 0:16.6 | It's an incredible anthropological moment. |
| 0:18.7 | It's so surreal, you know, to hear the wind howling around the National Cathedral and then to look down and think, there's Donald Trump 30 feet away from Justin Trudeau and he's in the middle. |
| 0:30.1 | His followers are baying on social media that we should somehow annex Canada, take over Canada. |
| 0:35.7 | I mean, has there ever been a country luckier in the world than |
| 0:38.7 | the United States to have Canada as its friend and next door neighbor? You know, and this is where we are. |
| 0:45.2 | Well, I did hear, I did hear some Democrats say, you know, how many people elected Donald Trump |
| 0:51.1 | so that their children could die fighting in Canada. Not too many. I'm not sure how |
| 0:55.4 | popular that particular annexation or war might be. Welcome to the political scene. This is our first |
| 1:04.7 | Washington roundtable of 2025. It's our weekly session about big questions in American politics. |
| 1:11.6 | I'm Jane Mayer, and I'm joined by my colleague Susan Glasser and Evan Osnos. |
| 1:17.1 | Hi, Susan. |
| 1:18.2 | Hey there. |
| 1:18.9 | Great to be with you. |
| 1:19.7 | Hi, Evan. |
| 1:20.9 | Great to be back, guys. |
| 1:27.2 | So, in just 10 days from this moment, Donald J. Trump will be officially inaugurated as president of the United States again, and his Republican Party will be fully in control of the federal government, the House of Representatives, the Senate, and the majority of the Supreme Court. |
| 1:45.9 | Already, though, we're seeing a sea change. Today, we wanted to spotlight what we think is among |
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