Social media giant Meta on Tuesday (January 7) scrapped its U.S. fact-checking program for a community-based system similar to X and reduced the curbs on discussions around contentious topics such as immigration and gender identity.

Meta abruptly ends US fact-checks ahead of Trump term

The move marks a reversal in Meta's policy as CEO Mark Zuckerberg has long championed active content moderation despite criticism from conservatives over alleged censorship on its platforms.

It also comes shortly after the company named Republican policy executive Joel Kaplan as global affairs head and elected Dana White, CEO of Ultimate Fighting Championship and a close friend of President-elect Donald Trump, to its board.

"We've reached a point where it's just too many mistakes and too much censorship. It's time to get back to our roots around free expression," Zuckerberg said in a video.

""First, we're going to get rid of fact-checkers and replace them with community notes similar to X starting in the U.S…We're going to focus on reducing mistakes, simplifying our policies and restoring free expression on our platforms. We're going to tune our content filters to require much higher confidence before taking down content."

Meta will also shift its trust and safety teams overseeing content policies and review content out of California to Texas and other U.S. locations.