It was no accident that Meta Platforms Inc chose Donald Trump's favourite TV news show, Fox and Friends, to discuss its decision to ditch outside fact-checking.
The move, which will impact content served to hundreds of millions of US users on platforms like Instagram and Facebook, was in effect aimed at an audience of one. It was the latest calculation in a months-long effort by founder and Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg to reposition the social media giant as a more Trump-friendly organisation after years of conflict and tensions.
In explaining the move, Mr Zuckerberg said Meta's external fact checkers "have been too politically biased and have destroyed more trust than they've created, especially in the US". His newly appointed policy chief, Joel Kaplan, a former staffer to President George W Bush with deep ties to the Republican party, went on Fox and Friends to articulate similar arguments about freeing more speech on Meta's online platforms.
It's a stark reversal from previous policies, which have included banning Mr Trump from Facebook due to his incendiary rhetoric. On the campaign trail last year, a belligerent Mr Trump called Facebook the "Enemy of the People" and threatened to imprison Mr Zuckerberg for alleged election interference.
Since then, Mr Zuckerberg has sought to forge a relationship with the president-elect and his top allies, praising Mr Trump publicly, donating US$1 million (34.64 million baht) to his inaugural fund and appointing a key supporter to Meta's board.
The latest step may be the most brazen: eliminating the quality controls and fact-checking systems that Mr Trump always hated, and doing so only within the US for now.
"I think this was a political move, not a policy move," said Alexios Mantzarlis, director of the Security, Trust, and Safety Initiative at Cornell Tech and formerly the founding director of the International Fact-Checking Network.
He criticised Mr Zuckerberg, who has previously celebrated Meta's fact-checking programme, for misrepresenting the work and ignoring research demonstrating its benefits.
"The winds have changed," Mr Mantzarlis said. "And so has Zuckerberg."
The effort from Mr Zuckerberg and Meta to better align with the incoming administration has come in several forms. Shortly after lauding Mr Trump's reaction to an attempted assassination as "badass", Mr Zuckerberg called Mr Trump on the phone to personally apologise for an errant fact check label that was appended to a photo of the former president.
After the election, the two had dinner at Mr Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida on the night before Thanksgiving.
Over the summer, Mr Zuckerberg also accused the Biden administration of pressuring his company into taking down posts and suppressing opinions about Covid, echoing a recurring complaint that Mr Trump has voiced about social media companies for years.
This week, Meta appointed Ultimate Fighting Championship CEO Dana White to its board of directors, adding one of the people Mr Trump celebrated his election-night victory with.
Mr Zuckerberg is far from the only major tech chief to follow the political winds towards Mr Trump. Elon Musk was at Mr Trump's side on election day, after hosting rallies in support of the Republican candidate during the campaign. He's sat in on meetings with CEOs of other major companies and has led policy debates about what Mr Trump should do before he's even taken office.
Amazon.com Inc founder Jeff Bezos decided to quash his Washington Post's planned endorsement for Democratic candidate Kamala Harris, while Amazon has also donated $1 million to Mr Trump's inaugural fund and has reportedly agreed to pay $40 million to license a documentary on Melania Trump.
Nvidia Corp's Jensen Huang just told Bloomberg News that he expected Mr Trump to bring less regulation and welcomed his business-friendly approach.
Meta is also facing a major antitrust trial later this year; The Federal Trade Commission is trying to break the company up and force Meta to spin off some of its most valuable products, including Instagram and WhatsApp. A friendly relationship with Mr Trump could help stave off some of Meta's most dangerous challenges.
"A lot of the future of this company, from AI to how it can operate, is very much gonna be influenced by decisions that the Trump administration makes -- and so they're trying to adapt to that," said Katie Harbath, founder and CEO of Washington-based tech policy firm Anchor Change, who previously served as a public policy director for Facebook.
Mr Zuckerberg said Meta would adopt a new "community notes" product, noting it would be similar to Mr Musk's X, which lets regular users weigh in and vote on the accuracy of posts on the service.
Sarah Kate Ellis, the president of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer media advocacy organisation GLAAD, said the removal of the fact-checking programmes and policies surrounding hate speech will make Meta's platforms unsafe for both users and advertisers.
"Meta is giving the green light for people to target LGBTQ people, women, immigrants, and other marginalised groups with violence, vitriol and dehumanising narratives," she said. ©2025 Bloomberg
Kurt Wagner is author and journalist covering social media and messaging for Bloomberg. Riley Griffin is a health reporter for Bloomberg News.