Meta chairman and CEO Mark Zuckerberg went on Joe Rogan‘s podcast to defend his latest determination to finish fact-checking on the web big’s platforms, together with Fb and Instagram.

“I’ve been engaged on this for a very long time, so, I imply, you’ve bought to do what you assume is true,” Zuckerberg stated on Friday’s episode of the “Joe Rogan Expertise.”

Zuckerberg informed Rogan two major occasions in 2016 triggered the transfer by Meta (then referred to as Fb) to institute fact-checking: Donald Trump’s election as U.S. president and Brexit within the U.Okay. “I believe that these have been mainly these two occasions the place for the primary time, we simply confronted this huge, huge institutional strain to mainly begin censoring content material on ideological grounds,” Zuckerberg stated.

“On the time I used to be actually type of ill-prepared to to sort of parse what was occurring,” Zuckerberg stated. “I believe a part of my reflection trying again on that is, I sort of assume in 2016 within the aftermath I gave an excessive amount of deference to a number of people within the media who have been mainly saying, ‘OK, there’s no approach that this man might have gotten elected apart from misinformation.’” That “began with the the Russia-collusion stuff” however “it sort of morphed into various things over time,” he added.

“I took this and simply sort of assumed that everybody was appearing in good religion and I stated, ‘OK, nicely there are issues about misinformation,’” Zuckerberg stated. “When you ask individuals, nobody says that they need misinformation, so perhaps there’s one thing that we must always do to to mainly attempt to deal with this.”

Nevertheless, Zuckerberg stated, “I used to be actually anxious from the start about mainly turning into this type of decider of what’s true on the planet… That’s like sort of a loopy place to be in for billions of individuals utilizing your service.” The corporate adopted a system that used third-party fact-checkers to determine “very clear hoaxes” — just like the “Earth is flat” — and “it simply type of veered from there.”

“I believe to a point it’s as a result of a few of the individuals whose job is to do fact-checking, a number of their trade is targeted on political fact-checking,” Zuckerberg stated. “So they simply sort of veered in that course.” In the previous couple of years, he stated, “I actually began coming to the conclusion that we have been going to wish to alter one thing about that.”

On Monday, Zuckerberg introduced that Meta will change its fact-checking packages with a “group notes” mannequin just like Elon Musk’s X. Zuckerberg stated the fact-checking system led to “too many errors and an excessive amount of censorship” and is “too politically biased.”

Zuckerberg’s finish to the Meta fact-checking initiative comes simply weeks earlier than Trump is ready to be sworn in for a second time period as U.S. president. Meta appointed UFC CEO Dana White — a detailed Trump pal — to its board, and the corporate is donating $1 million to Trump’s inaugural fund.

On Rogan’s present, Zuckerberg reiterated his place that the choice to finish Meta’s fact-checking was to return to its roots. “The entire level of social media is mainly, , giving individuals the power to share what they need and, , it goes again to our authentic mission [which] is simply give individuals the ability to share and make the world extra open and related,” the Meta chief stated.

Zuckerberg stated he “wasn’t too deep on our content material insurance policies for like the primary 10 years of the corporate.” He stated that “sensible points” arose that Meta acted on — reminiscent of placing in methods to battle cyberbullying and taking down pirated content material — however “it was actually within the final 10 years that individuals began pushing for, like, ideological-based censorship.”