The founder of Meta, Mark Zuckerberg, has announced substantial changes to the way that his company’s two most popular products, the social media networks Facebook and Instagram, will be moderated going forward.

The co-chair of the independent body that reviews Facebook and Instagram content has said she is "very concerned" about how parent company Meta's decision to ditch fact-checkers will affect minority groups.

Helle Thorning-Schmidt, from Meta's oversight board, told the BBC she welcomed aspects of the shake-up, which will see users decide about the accuracy of posts via X-style "community notes".

Is Mark Zuckerberg becoming Elon Musk?

The Meta CEO's replacement of its own fact-checkers with a version of Community Notes – name-checking X's crowdsourced fact-checking feature and adopting the same name – marks one of the most stunning practical results of Donald Trump's second election and a blow to efforts by governments and private disinformation cops to pressure platforms to censor.

Meta Platforms is ending fact-checking and removing restrictions on speech across Facebook and Instagram, a move Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg said was an attempt to restore free expression on its platforms.

“We’re going to get back to our roots and focus on reducing mistakes, simplifying our policies and restoring free expression on our platforms,” Zuckerberg said in a video Tuesday. “More specifically, we’re going to get rid of fact-checkers and replace them with Community Notes similar to X, starting in the U.S.”

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced a series of major changes to the company's moderation policies and practices Tuesday, citing a shifting political and social landscape and a desire to embrace free speech.

Zuckerberg said that Meta will end its fact-checking program with trusted partners and replace it with a community-driven system similar to X’s Community Notes.

The company is also making changes to its content moderation policies around political topics, and undoing changes that reduced the amount of political content in user feeds, Zuckerberg said.

Social media giant TikTok and its China-based parent company ByteDance have faced a recent setback after losing an appeal to delay the enforcement of a potential ban in the U.S.

As reported by The Associated Press, the platform saw its bid rejected to hold off legislation that would require ByteDance by mid-January to divest TikTok to an approved buyer or face a ban. Attorneys for the company are expected to appeal to the Supreme Court.