Meta is changing its fact-checking policy, so… Is the internet about to become the actual Wild West?

Mark Zuckerberg is playing nice with the ultimate comeback kid, Donald Trump, who not so long ago wanted to downgrade Zuckerberg from CEO to Cell Block C inmate. Amazing what a little Mar-a-Lago Thanksgiving dinner and a heaping serving of political brownnosing can do to turn once-bitter enemies into the best of frenemies.

The Zuckbot 3000 has now been reprogrammed to “bury the hatchet” with Trump and completely upend Meta’s content moderation policies. Reportedly, the company’s third-party fact-checkers have been deemed too “politically biased” for the new world order of Trumptopia. Zuck’s new plan is to replace the company’s fact-checking program with a “Community Notes” system — where truth is left to the whims of the masses. Yep, it smells eerily like the setup over at Elon Musk’s X.

Arguably, this shift towards a more “liberated” approach to content moderation is poised to transform Meta’s platforms into a freewheeling digital frontier, with minimal oversight on the veracity of the information being shared. To top it all off, Meta is moving its trust and safety teams from California to the heart of MAGA country: Texas. Zuckerberg has also pledged to join forces with President Trump to “push back on governments around the world that are going after American companies and pushing to censor more”

After being the villain in Trump’s book, where he was painted as a grand conspirator in the 2020 election, Zuckerberg’s strategy seems to be: if you can’t beat ‘em, join ’em. He was quick to laud Trump as a “badass” following his July assassination scare. Finally, he had to pay a $1 million “apology” donation to Trump’s inaugural fund to smooth things over.

At least Zuckerberg is in good company now. He joins the ranks of fellow tech billionaire Elon Musk in kissing the ring of the Trump empire. And with Meta’s new top policy officer being a card-carrying member of the GOP old boys’ club, and a Trump-loving UFC boss joining the board of directors, it’s clear that Zuckerberg is fully on board the MAGA train.

But what does this mean for the average doom-scroller? Well, buckle up. With Meta’s new “anything goes” policy, expect to see a flood of hate speech, conspiracy theories, and outright lies filling your feeds. Imagine scrolling through your newsfeed, only to be bombarded with posts claiming that the Earth is flat, vaccines are modern witchcraft, and Trump is the second coming of Christ. And if you dare to question any of this nonsense, prepare to be swarmed by an army of red-hatted trolls. All of this is happening now on X, and it’s about to spill over as the MAGA mob fully migrates to Facebook and Instagram. Oh, but don’t worry, at least those posts will come with Community Notes. That is, if enough sane people stick around to supply the energy required to volunteer their services.

But maybe everything will be fine? Zuckerberg has proven time and time again that he has the best interests of his users at heart. Just ask the victims of the Cambridge Analytica scandal, or the Rohingya people of Myanmar who faced genocide fueled by hate speech on Facebook…