NASHVILLE (BP) — Depending on the source, Mark Zuckerberg’s announcement that Meta platforms will jettison fact-checking protocols in favor of community notes is either a threat to democracy or a return to the spirit of free speech from when he co-founded Facebook in 2004.

“It’s time to get back to our roots around free expression on Facebook and Instagram,” he said in the opening seconds of a video announcing the changes.

Those changes, he continued, are in response to the damage ultimately brought by steps from the government “and legacy media” to oppose potentially harmful online content. After the 2016 presidential election Facebook established fact-checking protocols amid cries for greater accountability and accusations that Russian misinformation influenced the election in favor of Donald Trump.

The process of attempting to filter out misinformation actually led to greater censorship and an overall erosion of trust, Zuckerberg said. The step toward community notes will be similar to that initiated on X and will be phased in over the next few months.

Jason Thacker, senior fellow and director for the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission’s (ERLC) Research Institute, called the decision “a welcome shift in policy” and “significant victory for both free speech and religious freedom.”

“Freedom of speech is an essential element of ordered liberty as it helps promote a free and democratic society, yet it is still not an absolute right,” said Thacker, also assistant professor of philosophy and ethics at Boyce College. “Nothing is truly neutral including fact checkers, media giants, government officials, social media platforms, online influencers and even our own speech.”

The decision immediately filled op-ed pages in newspapers across the country.

The New York Times presented the decision as one more in line with Zuckerberg’s libertarian leanings while painting a picture that the Meta chairman had grown tired of trying to appease critics. The Los Angeles Times said it was a move to be more friendly with incoming President Trump. The Wall Street Journal called it a welcome decision while citing articles of its own relating to COVID herd immunity and climate change that had been suppressed by Facebook in recent years during the Biden administration.

In the video, Zuckerberg spoke on the mistakes with the fact-checking filters while addressing Meta’s responsibility not to completely abandon its gatekeeping role.

“There’s been widespread debate about potential harms from online content [and] governments and legacy media have pushed to censor more and more,” he said. “A lot of this is clearly political, but there is also a lot of legitimately bad stuff out there — drugs, terrorism, child exploitation — these are things that we take very seriously and I want to make sure that we handle responsibly.”

Topics like immigration and gender identity tended to land users in “Facebook jail” if fact-checkers disagreed. Moving forward, those policies will be streamlined in order to not shut out those voices. Filters that used to address any policy violation will now focus only on illegal or “high severity violations.”

Filters will also require a higher level of confidence before taking down content. This is a trade-off, Zuckerberg admitted, in that it will allow more bad content to slip through. But content that would otherwise be flagged unnecessarily now won’t be.

A fact-checker can have a different cultural point of view than an evangelical Christian and may see “facts” differently, regardless of his or her academic credentials. That can lead to a situation where “basic moral realities are often suppressed in our age,” said Thacker.

There is also a significant role for believers on the subject of responsibility and online discussion.

“As Christians rightly stand for truth and free expression in a post-truth age, we must also recognize that there is a plethora of misinformation and half-truths online often promoted for fleeting influence, financial gain and ungodly desires,” he said. “Free speech is a great responsibility and stewardship that many of our brothers and sisters in Christ around the world long to have, yet the gospel still goes forth even under immense persecution and grave injustices.”

The speed with which technology spreads the gospel also applies to misinformation and lies. The first is a calling for the worldwide church, the second a challenge.

“We need each other to recognize how our technology is shaping us and our world, especially how we even perceive the nature of truth and reality,” Thacker said. “One of the ways we can stand for truth and human dignity is by promoting free expression and religious freedom for all under the banner of ordered liberty.”

(EDITOR’S NOTE — Scott Barkley is chief national correspondent for Baptist Press.)