Big Tech Leaders Don’t Care About Social Media Information
As the first week of 2025 comes to an end, Big Tech’s two biggest social players and their leaders, Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk, appear uninterested in tackling social media disinformation, following Zuck’s decision to end fact-checking.
Meta’s decision to curb its fact-checking program highlights a key moment in the battle against misinformation that the Facebook parent has been waging for years. At least, Meta fact-checking has reduced harm caused by untruthful posts, with measures of accountability to the social world where misinformation and disinformation in social media happen at the speed of light.
By centering and aiding freedom of speech on social media platforms, Meta runs the risk of opening up the floodgates to unsupervised content, as happened on X’s similar platforms where Elon Musk misinformation campaigns took place. It is a move that raises questions not only about responsibility on the platform but also about where big tech misinformation leads to rowdiness on the platforms.
Technology, Wealth, and Power
Zuckerberg and Musk are wealthy enough to own a good part of the global communication infrastructure is a pretty serious commentary on where the tech world has taken us. Their decisions on social media misinformation have transcended business, becoming political choices with profound implications for democracy and the spread of disinformation.
This is further spread by the influences of political leaders such as Donald Trump. Big tech executives had been donors to his administration, including a number who had donated millions to his inauguration on January 20. His return to the office carries even more perils, as he has a history of taking a role of social media in spreading misinformation.
The tech industry’s attention and profit-driven economy has fostered an environment where lies spread faster than truths. Generative AI, through tools like ChatGPT , exacerbates this issue by producing human-like yet convincing falsehoods. With Meta integrating AI bots and Google relying on AI-driven search, the stakes for truthfulness have never been higher.
A Gloomy Future for Social Media
Big Tech’s approach to social media has exacerbated misinformation, with generative AI dismantling traditional safeguards. The burden now falls on independent journalists, bots, and individual users to uphold the truth. At stake is not only the tech industry’s future, but the health of democracies worldwide, and if issues like Elon Musk spreading election misinformation set the stage, the potential consequences would most probably be catastrophic.
Fake news and misinformation in social media, should come to an end but if big tech giants along with their CEO’s don’t want to take charge, then the government should be able to have a role in this.
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