Mark Zuckerberg, the social network’s chief executive, apologized in a post in November 2016 as Twitter was being held responsible for a deluge of false information and conspiracy ideas swirling around Donald J. Trump’s primary election. In his message, Mr. Zuckerberg announced a series of measures he planned to take to wrestle with false and misleading information on Facebook, such as working with fact-checkers. ” The bottom line is: we take propaganda seriously”, he wrote in a private Facebook post. ” There are many respected point checking companies”, he added, “and, while we have reached out to some, we plan to study from some more “.Eight years afterwards, Mr. Zuckerberg is no longer replying. On Tuesday, he announced that Meta, the parent firm of Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Threads, was ending its fact-checking plan and getting back to its roots around free expression. The fact-checking system had led to” too many censorship”, he said. It was the latest move in a change of Mr. Zuckerberg. In recent years, the chief executive, then 40, has stepped aside from his mea culpa approach to issues on his social platforms. He has told directors near to him that he wants to return to his original ideas on free speech, which require a lighter hand in glad restraint, fed up with what has seemed at times to be unending criticism of his business. As he has made the change, Mr. Zuckerberg has transformed Meta. The CrowdTangle clarity application, which was once used to track conspiracy theories and false information on Facebook, is no longer in use. The company’s election integrity team was once hailed as a group of experts who were only concerned with issues involving the vote, but it has since been merged into a basic integrity team. The post content is retrievable with difficulty. In your browser’s settings, kindly help Browser. Thank you for your patience while we verify entry. If you are in Audience mode please leave and log into your Times accounts, or listen for all of The Times. Thank you for your patience while we verify exposure. Now a customer? Register in. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.