Last week, Mark Zuckerberg announced he would eliminate fact-checkers from Meta’s social media platforms, including Facebook and Threads. He insinuated that fact-checkers have a history of liberal bias, which angered people on the far right in American society.

So, like the decree of an ancient ruler, necessary guardrails on popular social media platforms, with over 3 billion users worldwide, will vanish into the cultural landscape.

This is disquieting in our politically divided, highly polarized society. Truth and facts are essential in any healthy society. They are critical to our strength and mutual flourishing.

As consumers of social media content, we must be able to trust the information on our timelines, assured it is grounded in facts and reality.

What is truth? In the gospels, Pilate famously asked Jesus this question before allowing a violent crowd to decide his fate. 

The Greek word for truth in the Bible refers to knowing reality (facts), the essence of a matter. Even the ancient Greeks recognized the need for truth in a healthy, functional society. 


As we navigate the world, our experience must be grounded in what is accurate and factual. Factual reality allows us to deal with the world with a more complete understanding of its threats and challenges.

During the 2016 presidential campaign, Meta was pressured to address the high level of misinformation on its platform. According to ABC News, the move toward fact-checking posts “came under criticism from prominent Republicans, including Trump, who accused the company of anti-conservative bias in its evaluation of user posts.” According to analysts, Zuckerberg has reversed his decision on fact checkers due to pressure from the incoming Trump administration.

Fact-checking will be replaced with “community notes,” which are essentially comments from users offering a wide range of perspectives.

This new approach is not the same as fact-checking and likely will encourage a culture of moral relativism on the platform. 

Make no mistake: truth matters. Cosmologist Neil deGrasse famously predicted that Artificial Intelligence and the intentional blurring of reality and truth would lead to the demise of the internet. He argues the platform will predictably implode when consumers can no longer trust the information they find there.

The God of all creation cares about facts and truth, and even enshrined it in the ninth commandment: “Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.” As a moral standard, this means not lying about others, which causes harm. Scholars argue that this was designed to discourage perjury in judicial trials, but it also applies to any form of deceit and lying.

Truth is not relative. It is grounded in the moral imperatives of the Triune God. Facts matter and are critical to our stability and mutual flourishing in this grand experiment of democracy.

Always seek truth. Demand it of our leaders. Without it, our future is uncertain.     

     

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