Regulating online hate speech ‘not censorship’: U.N. rights chief

UN rights chief emphasizes regulating online hate speech is not censorship, crucial for accountability and human rights protection.

The United Nations rights chief insisted on Friday (January 10, 2025) that regulating hate speech and harmful content online “is not censorship”, days after Meta scrapped its fact-checking programme on Facebook and Instagram citing censorship concerns.

“Allowing hate speech and harmful content online has real world consequences. Regulating such content is not censorship,” Volker Turk said on X.

“My Office calls for accountability and governance in the digital space, in line with human rights,” he added.

Meta chief executive Mark Zuckerberg announced on Tuesday (January 7, 2025) the group would “get rid of fact-checkers” and replace them with community-based posts, starting in the United States, complaining the programme had made “too many mistakes and too much censorship”.

Instead, Meta platforms including Facebook and Instagram, "would use community notes similar to X (formerly Twitter), starting in the US," he added.

Meta’s surprise announcement echoed long-standing complaints by Mr. Trump’s Republican Party and X owner Elon Musk about fact-checking, which many conservatives see as censorship.

Facebook currently pays to use fact checks from around 80 organisations globally on the platform, as well as on WhatsApp and Instagram.