Mark Zuckerberg’s recent announcement about the elimination of content checkers at Meta—parent company of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp—has sparked strong criticism and ignited alarms about the risks that this implies for digital coexistence and society in general. The decision, which could worsen the spread of disinformationcomes in a context marked by the growing impunity that seems to characterize large technology platforms.
Experts in the field warn that figures such as Zuckerberg and Elon Musk, owner of the social network X, have built a parallel power that operates outside the reach of States, international organizations and judicial systems. This power, they say, ignores basic principles such as human rights and empathy towards people affected by the content disseminated on their platforms.
The impact of Meta’s decision could be devastating. Without a robust verification system, the space for disinformation, hate speech and conspiracy theories expands.further blurring the line between truth and lies. According to the company’s own figures, in the second quarter of 2023 alone, 7.2 million videos containing child sexual abuse were deleted, 6.4 million related to suicide or self-harm, and 17.5 million hate speeches. However, this data does not reflect how long content remained online or how much inappropriate material remains undetected.
In October 2023, 41 United States attorneys general filed a joint lawsuit against Meta, accusing the company of intentionally designing products that cause addiction among children and adolescents. New York Attorney General Letitia James called the situation an unprecedented crisis: “Children and teens are suffering from mental health issues like never before, and social media companies are to blame.”
In parallel, in a US Senate hearing in January 2024, Republican Senator Lindsey Graham directly confronted Zuckerberg, pointing out that digital platforms “have blood on their hands” due to the harmful impact of their products. Families of victims of abuse and suicide related to the use of social networks were present, displaying photos of their loved ones as a sign of protest.
The work of content moderators on these platforms illustrates the human impact of this crisis. According to data from the Spanish newspaper The Vanguardin 2023 Meta had about 15,000 moderators—less than the 20,000 registered in 2018—to supervise content in more than 50 languages. These workers face a titanic and emotionally devastating task: review hundreds of violent videos every day, including murders, sexual assaults and suicides.
An opinion column by Álex Grijelmo in the newspaper The Country warns that The lack of controls over anonymity on social networks is pointed out as one of the main causes of the spread of crimes and harmful behavior on the Internet. From extortion and slander to the dissemination of non-consensual sexual content, anonymity facilitates impunity for those responsible. In Spain, complaints of sextortion tripled between 2018 and 2023, according to the State Attorney General’s Office.
Anonymity, specialists argue, has also contributed to the increase in suicides among young people, which grew by 32% between 2019 and 2021.
To mitigate these problems, some experts have put forward innovative proposals. One of them suggests the creation of a registry linking real names with pseudonyms, managed by notaries or registrars. This would allow those responsible for crimes to be quickly identified when requested by a judge, without eliminating privacy in general.
However, the implementation of these measures requires a coordinated effort at the international level. Regulations such as those proposed by the European Union could be a first step to limit the power of big technology and promote a safer digital environment. Meanwhile, Zuckerberg’s announcement and Musk’s policies seem to continue in the opposite direction, consolidating a business model that prioritizes economic profits over the well-being of its users and the social fabric.
