Meta Cuts Funding for Fact-Checking on WhatsApp as Elections Loom

Meta Platforms is reducing payments to news organizations that fact-check potential misinformation on WhatsApp, including around elections, according to three people with knowledge of the situation.

The cuts mean fewer fact-checkers will monitor election-related discussions on the global messaging app in a year when around half of the world’s population will go to the polls, including in the U.S. and India, two of those people said. The move could also hurt news organizations’ ability to check nonelection content, one of those people said. The cuts come as Meta pushes features to allow more group conversations with more people on WhatsApp, potentially permitting misinformation to spread more easily.