Fact-checking director warns of 'crisis' as Meta, Trump's DOGE cuts threaten their 'honorable, patriotic' work
Fact-checkers are facing severe challenges and political pressure while doing their "honorable" and "patriotic" work, one director warned.
On Wednesday, International Fact-Checking Network Director Angie Drobnic Holan penned an op-ed for Poynter to mark "International Fact-Checking Day." Though the day has been a time of celebration for her in the past, she wrote that the community has already faced several major blows in 2025, threatening not just the profession but society as well.
Holan pointed to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announcing in January that the company would be ending its fact-checking system across Facebook, Meta and Instagram platforms.
"Not everyone loves fact-checking, and there are powerful political forces that would simply like it to go away," Holan wrote. "This is indeed a crisis for fact-checkers, but it's even worse for the general public. Disinformation hurts people. It has real-world consequences."
She cited President Donald Trump and the Department of Government Efficiency's (DOGE) efforts to gut the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) as another example.
Holan said, "The public funding that Elon Musk is trashing was another factor in the growth of fact-checking; groups like USAID thought that funding fact-checking overseas would empower democracy and accountable government."
"I remember an international development officer telling me that fact-checking encouraged fact-based public debate on important public issues and therefore encouraged stable societies," she recalled.
Holan attributed attacks on fact-checking to its effectiveness.
"Fact-checking holds the line on reality for history's sake. It builds evidence-based records that can withstand political pressures," she wrote. "Politicians who want to create their own realities are fighting hard against fact-checking, and they're strong-arming tech companies and social media platforms into helping them."
Holan called on fact-checkers to defend their "truth-seeking" in the face of these challenges.
"If we want a society that respects truth, now is our time to fight for it," Holan concluded.
Liberal commentators have attacked Meta's decision to pull fact-checkers, claiming that it was Zuckerberg capitulating to Trump ahead of his inauguration. Some even called the decision "dangerous."
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