- This year will be pivotal for Meta’s relationship with the government, Mark Zuckerberg said.
- The Trump administration defends US tech companies, the Meta CEO said during the company’s earnings call.
- He also doubled down on Meta’s shift from fact-checkers to community notes.
Mark Zuckerberg said 2025 will be a “big year” for redefining Meta’s relationship with the federal government.
The tech CEO made the comment during Meta’s earnings call on Wednesday as the tech giant reported that it beat revenue estimates for the fourth quarter.
“This is also going to be a big year for redefining our relationship with governments,” Zuckerberg said. “We now have a US administration that is proud of our leading company, prioritizes American technology winning, and that will defend our values and interests abroad. I’m optimistic about the progress and innovation that this can unlock.”
Zuckerberg and his company have been working to maintain a positive relationship with President Donald Trump’s administration.
The company donated $1 million to Trump’s inauguration, and Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, attended the inauguration ceremony alongside a slew of other tech moguls.
“Facebook is used by more than 3 billion monthly actives, and we’re focused on growing its cultural influence, and I’m excited this year to get back to some OG Facebook,” Zuckerberg said on the earnings call. “I think we’re going to build some awesome things that shape the future of human connection.”
Meta announced earlier this month that it was replacing its fact-checkers with community notes, a style of content moderation similar to what Elon Musk’s X has in place.
“I believed in free expression for quite a while,” Zuckerberg said on Wednesday. “People don’t want to see misinformation, but you need to build an effective system that gives people more context. What we found over time is that the community notes system, I think, is just going to be more effective than the system that we had before.”
The decision prompted praise from some business leaders, but also came with some controversy. The International Fact-Checking Network’s director, Angie Holan, told BI the fact-checking on Facebook “was never about censorship but about adding context to prevent false claims from going viral.”
