By Ashfaq Zaman
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg's decision to end independent fact-checking on his platforms may well be an attempt to build a frictionless relationship with the United States' incoming president.
Indeed, Zuckerberg joined Tesla's Elon Musk, OpenAI's Sam Altman, Amazon's Jeff Bezos and Apple's Tim Cook in their obsequious attendance at Donald Trump's inauguration. Beyond this display of allegiance, Silicon Valley's policies are more broadly signalling a desire for a cosy alliance between the incoming presidency and Big Tech.
However, Zuckerberg and the rest of the Tech Bro class must understand that their content policies have implications that stretch far beyond the American cultural and political zeitgeist.
Prioritising corporate convenience has dangerous real-world consequences for individuals and states across the world, especially in the Global South.
For a long time, countries across African and South-East Asian regions have been little more than an afterthought for Big Tech companies. This is astounding when according to Facebook's own SEC filings, 72 percent of its user base is outside of North America and Europe.
Take the Cambridge Analytica scandal. We know that through Facebook, Cambridge Analytica's military-grade digital technology could paint false pictures of political realities across the developing world, and change the outcome of dozens of elections.
Perversely, by interfering in elections in, for example, Kenya and Nigeria, Cambridge Analytica was merely training its algorithm in advance of the "real thing" in 2016 - the American election and the Brexit vote – where Britons voted for the United Kingdom to exit the European Union. In short, entire electorates were treated as lab rats under Meta's watch.
State-level disinformation
Even before Meta recently decided to remove its third-party fact-checkers, its platforms had been used by nation-states to sew deliberate misinformation campaigns against their neighbours and rivals.
In my home country of Bangladesh, we have experienced this first-hand. In the wake of our country's revolution and the fall of former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, our nation has been the victim of a targeted disinformation campaign, proliferating largely across social media.
Like many disinformation campaigns, this one appears to have piggy-backed onto the fog of chaos caused by Hasina's exit to peddle a narrative designed to malign Bangladesh's reputation and instil fear in its minority populations.
During the revolution, it is true there have been attacks on police stations. There have also been (very few) instances of violence against minorities. However, the roots of these instances of violence were not racial, unlike claims suggested by various state-linked social media accounts. Instead, they were about land rights and personal disagreements.
Take the Durga Puja festival in October, Bangladesh's largest Hindu festival. The Puja celebrations proceeded without any major, notable forms of violence. However, at least 14 social media rumours were spread between October 6 and October 12. According to the voluntary fact-checking organisation Rumor Scanner, all of the rumours were based on old or edited videos of other countries.
These are not isolated incidents. Analysis from the Intelligence platform Blackbird.Ai has revealed and debunked doctored images, spread by social media supporters of certain interests, of a fire at the Bangladeshi cricket captain's house, Hindu women being held captive, and videos of fires at restaurants, among others.
Although it's hard to track the exact cause and effect of disinformation, having so much misleading information out there undoubtedly contributes to the confusion and chaos.
These types of narrative attacks are not new. A previous 15-year campaign referred to as the "Indian Chronicles" was designed to undermine neighbouring states and serve geopolitical interests by influencing international organisations through at least 750 fake news outlets across 119 countries.
In fact, according to the World Economic Forum's 2024 Global Risk Report, the risk of narrative attacks from this region ranks among the highest globally.
Information as a weapon These social media posts and fake news articles have been allowed to proliferate across social media like wildfire. This doesn't just stir social discontent; it can and does ignite violence.
One need only look at the Herdsman-farmer conflict in Nigeria in 2018. These clashes, triggered by resource conflicts driven by desertification, have been ratcheted up online by misleading information shared on social media.
A BBC report has pointed to multiple instances where in the vacuum of official information, rumours of herdsmen violence, along with misleading images, have been shared thousands of times across Twitter, (now X). It's hard to separate the spread of online hate from instances of violence in real life.
Research has shown that misinformation can be especially potent in regions that suffer from an information vacuum. In the absence of independent journalism, backed up fact-checking, misleading information spread on social, deliberately or otherwise, can fill the void far more rapidly and persuasively.
Equally, take the reports illuminated in the Facebook Files, suggesting that Facebook knew that its platform was being used to incite violence while doing little to prevent it.
Francs Haugen, ex-Facebook manager and whistleblower behind the Facebook papers stated one of her core motivations was how badly the platform was handling the stem of harmful information and calls for violence during Ethiopia's civil war.
Chillingly, she stated: "I genuinely fear that a huge number of people are going to die in the next five to 10 years, or 20 years, because of choices and underfunding."
Weaponised information is particularly dangerous. Unlike traditional weaponry, where impact and collateral can be roughly predicted, the effects of information on the mind can be wild and unpredictable, and they can linger for far longer than intended. Just as a fire can be controlled in the beginning, with enough fuel, the damage becomes exponential.
Despite its unpredictability, disinformation has become a favoured tool in the warfare of ideas. It is notoriously difficult to trace the roots of disinformation campaigns, and they are comparatively cheap to launch.
The truth is that sites like X and Meta have become the primary sources of news for many; with over half of Bangladeshis consuming news via social media. Studies show that in Southeast Asia, where internet penetration is approximately 14 percent above the global average, the unregulated nature of these platforms increases the ease, and risk, of disinformation dissemination.
Neither Meta nor X takes this responsibility seriously. Independent fact-checking was a flimsy backstop against the spread of pernicious disinformation. To remove any pretence of content moderation is a clear mask slip; it is an admission Meta's business model flourishes from outrage, not accuracy.
Disinformation and violence
In many regions in the Global South, social media sites are essentially a public service. Given their eye-watering profits, you might expect these executives to take this responsibility seriously.
Yet, these platforms are still calibrated to profit off engagement, and nothing drives engagement like outrage. The truth or safety of the information provided has become even less of an afterthought. Not only have sites like Meta failed in their responsibility to their customers, but they've actively allowed top advertisers to circumvent content moderation procedures.
This indicates that tech companies like Meta are not only uninterested in regulating their platforms, but their business model incentivises them not to.
Tech companies like Meta are not only uninterested in regulating their platforms, but their business model incentivises them not to.
Meta must remember that its influence is not merely domestic, but global. Social media can still be a powerful tool for the unvoiced and unheard. Meta's policy changes must reflect the needs and wishes of its entire customer base, instead of simply mirroring the mood music of the US.
That means ensuring that its platform cannot be used as a disinformation weapon but as a reliable, trustworthy and impartial vehicle of civil discourse. With the right corrections, Meta and the like can still rebuild themselves as the champions of gatekeeper-free communication that they once were.
If governments and the international community fail to grow a backbone, the cowboys of the new Wild West will lead the world so far down the post-truth rabbit hole that we may never see sunlight again.
The author, Ashfaq Zaman is Director of the Dhaka Forum and co-founder of CNI News.
Disclaimer: The views expressed by the authors do not necessarily reflect the opinions, viewpoints and editorial policies of TRT Afrika.
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