• Meta plans to end US fact-checking partnerships in March, with payments to continue through August.
• Meta has cited "changing free speech perceptions" as part of the reason for their decision.
• Meta's global fact-checking support remains, including an IFCN Business Continuity Fund.

Meta's US fact-checking partnerships will officially end in March, and payments to partners will continue through August, Business Insider has learned.

Details of an exchange between Meta and Angie Holan, the director of the International Fact-Checking Network, were revealed during a private IFCN meeting attended by more than 150 members, the audio of which was obtained by Business Insider. These details have not been previously reported.

Meta informed the IFCN it was ending its fact-checking partnerships just 45 minutes before the company published a blog post about the decision, written by Joel Kaplan, Meta's new head of public policy who has long-standing ties to the Republican Party.

The company said its new approach was prompted by "changing perceptions of free speech" and a desire to "allow for more free speech."

Severance and a support fund for fact-checkers

Contracts with all 10 fact-checking organizations in the US will end in March, with payments continuing until August. Organizations that have not signed contracts for 2025 were offered the option to participate in a severance program.

Kaplan's post said that Meta will replace its fact-checking partnerships with X-style community notes — but the Meta executive told Holan that the rollout of community notes is expected to take time.

Meta indicated that the system would be built and implemented throughout 2025. When asked whether the company intends to expand community notes globally, Meta gave a noncommittal response, saying it would first monitor the program's effects in the US and consider the regulatory landscape in other countries.

Participation guidelines for the program remain unclear.

When Holan pressed Meta on how the IFCN should navigate the divide between US changes and the status of global programs, Meta's response was vague, advising the IFCN to "stay present for both constituencies."

Holan expressed disappointment during the conversation, describing Meta's fact-checking program as one that "positively influenced a whole ecosystem of fact-checking" and emphasized that the work was never about censorship.

"This seems like politics," she told the Meta executive, who declined to confirm or deny political motivations, stating only that they were "personally proud" of the program's legacy.

Meta's support for other IFCN initiatives will remain unchanged. This includes the IFCN's new Business Continuity Fund, designed to provide temporary financial assistance to fact-checking organizations affected by natural disasters, civil unrest, military conflicts, or state repression.

The fund aims to help organizations resume their normal operations as quickly as possible and ensure the safety and well-being of their team members. Meta also confirmed that a separate WhatsApp-related grant program would continue.

However, when asked whether Meta would continue sponsoring Global Fact, IFCN's flagship annual conference, the executive had no definitive answer, suggesting that IFCN "stay in conversation" about the issue.

Despite the end of its US fact-checking program, the executive left the door open for continued communication with IFCN, saying Meta was "open to keep talking" about ways to support public information efforts.

IFCN partners blindsided financially

Many IFCN partners were blindsided by the announcement, as they had assumed that their work with Meta would continue.

"Several of the signatories were waiting for their new contracts," Holan said in the meeting. "The new contracts did come over the winter break. Things just seemed on course with the program in the US. We didn't have any alerts or messages that something like yesterday's news was coming."

The abrupt end left partners reeling.

Jesse Stiller, the managing editor of Check Your Fact, a Meta US fact-checking partner for five years, described the fallout.

"We had just signed our contract for 2025, and it looked like we were going to sign another one for 2026 if everything went to plan," Stiller said in the meeting. "We found out about the news literally when we woke up the next morning. The first thing I saw was a news notification — I thought it might be a mistake. Everything was thrown into chaos."

Stiller said that Check Your Fact is almost entirely reliant on Meta's funding. "We don't have any other external funding. Meta is our primary revenue source," he said.

Check Your Fact's team of 10 faces an uncertain future, he said. "The best-case scenario is that we last a few more months with the severance package. But honestly, we're done by March."

During the meeting, several fact-checkers voiced frustration not only with the program's termination but also with Zuckerberg's recent comments about fact-checkers.

Jency Jacob, the managing editor of the India-based fact-checking organization Boom, suggested that US fact-checkers formally call on Zuckerberg to retract his remarks.

"Basically, what he's done is he's literally burnt the house down," Jacob said. "For many years to come, his statements will continue to be used against fact-checkers."

Holan acknowledged the emotional toll but urged attendees to maintain professionalism.

"We do want to maintain a certain level of civility so that we can continue the relationships with Meta in the future when circumstances change or the political environment shifts," she said. "We don't want to say things that aren't necessary and could end dialogue."

The ripple effects of Meta's decision were felt globally.

Justin Arenstein, the cofounder and CEO of Code for Africa, an African network of data journalism labs, said that Meta's Middle East and North Africa team was also blindsided.

"The decision caught many of Meta's MENA team by surprise. They were discussing the expansion of our contract to new countries as recently as two weeks ago," Arenstein wrote in the meeting chat.

If you're a current or former Meta employee, contact this reporter from a nonwork device securely on Signal at +1-408-905-9124 or email him at [email protected].

• Meta is ending US fact-checking partnerships and shifting to crowdsourced moderation tools.
• The International Fact-Checking Network called an emergency meeting after the announcement.
• Meta's decision affects the financial sustainability of fact-checking organizations.

The International Fact-Checking Network has convened an emergency meeting of its members following Meta's announcement on Tuesday that it will end its third-party fact-checking partnerships in the US and replace them with a crowdsourced moderation tool similar to X's community notes.

In an exclusive interview with Business Insider, the IFCN's director, Angie Holan, confirmed that the meeting, scheduled for Wednesday, was organized in direct response to Meta's decision.

"We hold these meetings monthly, but we called this one specifically because of today's news," she said.

The meeting is expected to draw between 80 and 100 attendees from the IFCN's network of fact-checkers, which spans 170 organizations worldwide. Not all the expected attendees are Meta fact-checking partners, though many of them have a stake in the program's future and its global implications.

The IFCN has long played a crucial role in Meta's fact-checking ecosystem by accrediting organizations for Meta's third-party program, which began in 2016 after the US presidential election that year.

Certification from the IFCN signaled that a fact-checking organization met rigorous editorial and transparency standards. Meta's partnerships with these certified organizations became a cornerstone of its efforts to combat misinformation, focusing on flagging false claims, contextualizing misinformation, and curbing its spread.

'People are upset'

Holan described the mood among fact-checkers as somber and frustrated.

"This program has been a major part of the global fact-checking community's work for years," she said. "People are upset because they saw themselves as partners in good standing with Meta, doing important work to make the platform more accurate and reliable."

She noted that fact-checkers were not responsible for removing posts, only for labeling misleading content and limiting its virality.

"It was never about censorship but about adding context to prevent false claims from going viral," Holan said.

A last-minute heads-up

An employee at PolitiFact, one of the first news organizations to partner with Meta on its Third-Party Fact-Checking Program in December 2016, said the company received virtually no warning from Meta before the program was killed.

"The PolitiFact team found out this morning at the same time as everyone else," the employee told BI.

An IFCN employee who was granted anonymity told BI that the organization itself got a heads-up only "late yesterday" via email that something was coming. It asked for a 6 a.m. call — about an hour before Meta's blog post written by its new Republican policy head, Joel Kaplan, went live.

"I had a feeling it was bad news," this employee said.

Meta did not respond to a request for comment.

Financial fallout for fact-checkers

Meta's decision could have serious financial consequences for fact-checking organizations, especially those that relied heavily on funding from the platform.

According to a 2023 report published by the IFCN, income from Meta's Third-Party Fact-Checking Program and grants remain fact-checkers' predominant revenue streams.

"Fact-checking isn't going away, and many robust organizations existed before Meta's program and will continue after it," Holan said. "But some fact-checking initiatives were created because of Meta's support, and those will be vulnerable."

She also underscored the broader challenges facing the industry, saying that fact-checking organizations share the same financial pressures as newsrooms. "This is bad news for the financial sustainability of fact-checking journalism," she said.

Skepticism toward community notes

Meta plans to replace its partnerships with community notes, a crowd-based system modeled after X's approach.

Holan expressed doubt that this model could serve as an effective substitute for expert-led fact-checking.

"Community notes on X have only worked in cases where there's bipartisan agreement — and how often does that happen?" she said. "When two political sides disagree, there's no independent way to flag something as false."

It's not yet clear how Meta's implementation of community notes will work.

'We'll be here after' Meta's program

Despite the uncertainty, Holan remains steadfast in the IFCN's mission.

"The IFCN was here before Meta's program, and we'll be here after it," she said. "We may look different in size and scope, but we'll continue promoting the highest standards in fact-checking and connecting organizations that want to collaborate worldwide."

Holan said Wednesday's meeting would focus on supporting IFCN members as they navigate this transition.

"We're here to help them figure out the best way forward," she said.

If you're a current or former Meta employee, contact this reporter from a nonwork device securely on Signal at +1-408-905-9124 or email him at [email protected].

• Donald Trump recently appointed Sriram Krishnan to an AI advisory role.
• Krishnan came to the US from India in 2007 and became a US citizen in 2016.
• Indian tech workers initially praised his appointment, but have grown concerned by MAGA criticism.

Anuj Christian's green card was approved in 2019, a decade after he first came to the US as a graduate student from India. Since then, he's been waiting to receive it, one of thousands trapped in a lengthy backlog created by America's byzantine immigration system.

Earlier this month, Christian was hopeful for the first time in years. Just before Christmas, Donald Trump announced that Sriram Krishnan, a first-generation Indian American, would serve as a senior White House policy advisor for AI. Krishnan is set to work closely with Trump's new "crypto czar" David Sacks, an early investor in Facebook, SpaceX, Uber, and Palantir.

For Christian, Krishnan's appointment felt personal. "Sriram has personally been through the immigration system," said Christian, who runs an immigration reform group called FAIR. "Someone who has personally been through this issue is close to the president now. That has never happened before."

From Chennai to Silicon Valley

Krishnan arrived in the US in 2007 from Chennai, India, to begin a six-year stint at Microsoft. From there, he climbed the ranks of Silicon Valley, holding senior roles at Yahoo, Snap, Facebook, and Twitter. In 2020, he moved to venture capital, becoming a general partner at Andreessen Horowitz.

Along the way, Krishnan became a US citizen in 2016, a milestone that eludes many legal immigrants from India. The green card backlog, a byproduct of per-country caps on employment-based permanent US residency, has left thousands of skilled workers from India in limbo. Wait times can now exceed beyond a lifetime.

Krishnan's appointment comes with a unique resonance for those impacted by this system. He has spoken openly about the challenges of navigating US immigration and has advocated for raising the country-based green card caps. These calls for reform have been a recurring theme of The Aarthi and Sriram Show, a podcast he hosts with his tech entrepreneur wife Aarthi Ramamurthy.

MAGA backlash

Krishnan's visibility and advocacy have turned him into a lightning rod for MAGA followers, though. In the days since Trump's announcement, the technologist has faced hate speech and racism directed not just at him but also at Indians and legal immigration in general. Krishnan declined to comment.

The backlash began with a tweet from far-right activist Laura Loomer, who criticized his appointment as "deeply disturbing" and said it conflicted with Trump's "America First" agenda.

Loomer accused Krishnan of advocating to "remove all restrictions on green card caps" and enabling foreign workers to take jobs from American STEM graduates, citing Silicon Valley's reliance on international talent as a threat to domestic innovation. Former Congressman Matt Gaetz, who was Trump's initial pick for attorney general, accused "tech bros" of engineering "an immigration policy."

H-1B visa debate

Rahul Menon, an Indian-born engineer from Rhode Island and host of Area51, a podcast about immigration, believes hate speech directed at Krishnan reflects broader misconceptions about skilled immigrants in the US.

"They just assume we are here to steal everyone's jobs," Menon told Business Insider. "If people understood the process of getting through an H-1B and the number of hoops you need to jump through, it's insane. The hate that Sriram is getting is just the beginning. You just need a thick skin to do the job."

Some of the scorn has been directed at H-1Bs, a common visa type that Silicon Valley companies and tech outsourcing firms use to hire foreign workers in the US. This particular system is also overwhelmed by huge volumes of applications for a limited number of slots each year. Bloomberg News uncovered a scheme earlier this year, known as "multiple registration," that manipulates the H-1B program and prevents what it described as legitimate talent from accessing these skilled-worker visa-based opportunities.

Recent optimism

Menon noted that optimism around addressing the green card backlog has been steadily growing, fueled by statements from high-profile figures. During a June appearance on the All-In Podcast hosted by VCs including Sacks, Trump expressed support for granting green cards to all US college graduates. Trump also recently voiced support for H-1B visas.

Menon sees Krishnan's appointment as the latest in a series of developments boosting morale among advocates for US immigration reform.

"It started with Trump saying that, then with Vivek, and now with Sriram — it's the cherry on top," Menon said, referring to Vivek Ramaswamy, another Trump advisor whose parents immigrated from Kerala, India. Ramaswamy has repeatedly called for the H-1B lottery system to be replaced with a selection process based on merit.

"AI stands for artificial intelligence, not American Indian"

Others remain skeptical about Krishnan's ability to influence immigration policy in his new role.

Sacks addressed the speculation directly in a tweet: "Sriram has been a US citizen for a decade. He's not 'running America.' He's advising on AI policy. He will have no influence over US immigration policy." The post appeared aimed at calming criticism from MAGA loyalists and quelling hope among some Indian immigrants that Krishnan's appointment would lead to immediate changes.

Ash Arora, a partner at VC firm LocalGlobe, and a friend of Krishnan and his wife, Ramamurthy, cautioned against reading too much into Krishnan's role when it comes to immigration reform.

"Sriram has been hired for AI — and AI stands for artificial intelligence, not American Indian," she told Business Insider. "I'm not sure whether Sriram will have a say in immigration matters, but the optimism about legal immigration being fixed, in my opinion, is misguided."

Ultimately, Krishnan is an AI policy advisor, Area51's Menon said. "I'd like to hope things will change. But let's not count our chickens before they've hatched."

• Meta's Horizon app topped Apple's App Store on Christmas Day, signaling strong VR headset demand.
• Quest headsets, starting at $299, are gaining mainstream traction in virtual reality.
• Despite strong demand, Meta's Reality Labs faces significant financial losses.

Meta's virtual reality ambitions got a Christmas boost this year.

On Christmas Day, the company's Meta Horizon app, which users must download to set up the Quest virtual reality headsets developed by Meta, was the top free app in Apple's App Store in the US and the UK, indicating strong holiday demand.

Meta has never disclosed how many Quest headsets it has sold. The surge in app downloads suggests that the Quest is solidifying its status as one of the most mainstream VR headsets. The devices, which start at $299 and are developed by Meta's Reality Labs division, are a relatively affordable gateway to virtual and mixed-reality experiences. They let people watch movies on giant virtual screens, play immersive games, and even work out.

Meta did not respond to a request for comment about Quest sales from Business Insider.

Quest competes with VR headsets from other companies, including Sony, HTC, and Apple, although Apple's Vision Pro headset costs much more, at $3,500.

Meta has been working to make VR more accessible to a broader audience. In October, the company launched the Quest 3S, a less expensive version of the more advanced Quest 3, priced at $299 — $200 less than the standard model. Like the Quest 3, the 3S lets people experience mixed reality in full color, making it a compelling entry point for VR newcomers.

Meta's quarterly revenue from Reality Labs, which includes $299 Ray-Ban glasses that let people take pictures and talk to Meta's AI chatbot, was $270 million — an increase of 29% compared to the same quarter the year before, the company announced in October.

Still, Reality Labs continues to bleed money. In the third quarter of 2024, Meta reported that Reality Labs lost $4.4 billion, up from $3.7 billion in the same quarter of 2023. For the first nine months of 2024, Reality Labs lost nearly $13 billion, Meta's earnings report said, and the company has warned investors that it expects the division to lose even more money.

"Overall, I'd say Reality Labs is clearly one of our strategic long-term priorities," said Susan Li, Meta's chief financial officer, responding to a question about Reality Labs' losses on the earnings call. She added that Meta expects it to "be an area of significant investment as we build out towards the very ambitious product road map that we have there."

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has remained bullish on the company's VR strategy. On the call, Zuckerberg highlighted the company's strong demand for its Ray-Ban glasses and expressed optimism about Orion, an early prototype of its glasses that superimpose digital elements onto the real world.

"We're not too far off from being able to deliver great-looking glasses that let you seamlessly blend the physical and digital worlds," Zuckerberg said on the earnings call.

Unlike the Meta Horizon app for Quest headsets, Meta View, the app for setting up the Ray-Ban glasses, however, isn't on the App Store's top charts.

• A survey shows Bluesky users are more Democratic and politically engaged than Threads users.
• Threads has 300 million monthly users, surpassing Bluesky's 24 million.
• Bluesky allows users to add their own moderation policies.

A new survey revealed stark political and behavioral differences between users of rival social media platforms Bluesky and Meta-owned Threads.

Bluesky's user base skews heavily Democratic, with nearly half of its users identifying with the party, according to findings published earlier this month by CivicScience, a research and survey company. In contrast, only 34% of Threads users identified as either Democrat or Independent.

The study also found that Bluesky users are more politically engaged overall. And nearly three-quarters of them said that they experienced higher levels of stress postelection. In contrast, 33% of people who used Threads daily said that their stress levels decreased after Donald Trump's victory on November 5.

"With the surge of Bluesky coming so directly in the wake of the presidential election, it's not surprising that the user base is disproportionately more left-leaning than the user base of Threads," John Dick, CivicScience CEO and founder, told Business Insider.

The survey included 12,188 Threads users and 5,431 Bluesky users. This roughly mirrors the ratio of both platforms' user bases in the adult US population, as 18% of respondents reported using Threads daily, compared to 8% for Bluesky, CivicScience data found.

Both social networks experienced significant user growth following the US election, particularly as billionaire Elon Musk, the owner of X, threw his weight behind Trump and actively promoted misinformation that reportedly garnered over 2 billion views.

Still, Threads seems to be eating Bluesky's lunch. Earlier this month, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced that the platform had more than 300 million monthly active users, compared to Bluesky's 24 million users at the beginning of this month.

Bluesky began life inside Twitter in 2019 as a project started under the company's former CEO, Jack Dorsey. Its goal was to give users more control over moderation. Bluesky has been an independent company since 2021 and is a decentralized social network.

Bluesky is powered by the "AT Protocol" (Authenticated Transfer Protocol), which means that while Bluesky operates the main server, anyone can create and run their own server that can work with Bluesky. This allows users to choose different providers while maintaining a unified social network experience. Crucially, this also means that users can add their own moderation policies on top of Bluesky's built-in moderation systems.

"The decentralized moderation policies of Bluesky, which allow for more proliferation of political content on the platform, could be exacerbating this phenomenon," said Dick of Bluesky's left-leaning user base, "as Democrats and liberals create a sort of tribal safe space for their views and conversations."

Beyond politics, the survey revealed an optimism gap between the two platforms regarding AI. Bluesky users appear to be significantly more bullish on the technology, with 62% believing that AI will have at least a somewhat positive impact on the quality of their lives over the next decade, compared to 51% of Threads users.

Overall, More Bluesky users are likely to use platforms like YouTube, TikTok, and X every day compared to Threads users who gravitate toward Facebook and Instagram, which are both owned by Meta.