Last week, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced that the company’s social media platforms will end their third-party fact-checking program and transition to a Community Notes system, mirroring the model introduced by Elon Musk on X (formerly Twitter).
The fact-checking program, launched in 2016 during Trump’s first election cycle, foreshadowed the Saturn-Pluto conjunction of 2018–2021.
This alignment archetypally symbolizes rigid conservatism and a confrontation with dark forces, energies that correlated with the upheaval of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Interestingly, George Orwell’s 1984, written during a Saturn-Pluto alignment, also anticipated a similar transit in the early 1980s, reflecting themes of authoritarian control.
Meta’s use of independent fact-checkers during this period evoked comparisons to "Big Brother," sparking significant political controversy.
The shift away from this centralized model aligns with the current Uranus-Pluto alignment (active until 2032), which emphasizes "power to the masses."
Community Notes embodies this energy by returning the authority to social media users, decentralizing the role of truth arbitration and fostering collective accountability.