Behind the Curtain: The information gods

Why it matters: In this new information world order, the people with the largest platforms and followings hold more power than ever in shaping reality. That's a seismic shift in how realities are formed in real time.

Meta's decision to dial back fact-checking, announced Tuesday, captures the sea change.

• A few short years ago, Twitter (before it was X), Facebook and Instagram had robust teams monitoring news and information — and pulling down posts that were hateful or deemed fake or misinformation. On top of that, news organizations had more credibility than today — allowing them both to expose misinformation, and also help correct it for the public.
• Now, the platforms' fact-checking teams have been dismantled, and traditional media is more delegitimized with a lot of consumers.

While that was happening, the common window through which most Americans learned about the country and the world — TV, newspapers, radio — was shattered into dozens of shards of glass, based on consumer's personal preferences.

• So as President-elect Trump — a huge beneficiary of this new reality — takes office, the way we get informed has been upended in ways most have not fully reckoned with.

Rising powers:

• Elon Musk (211 million followers on X), Mark Zuckerberg (118 million followers on Facebook, 15 million on Instagram) and others running the biggest, most influential platforms, and attracting the biggest personal followings. Trump has 97 million followers on X, if he ever returns in earnest. Plus his posts from his own platform, Truth Social (8.5 million followers), are instantly mirrored and amplified on X by official Trump accounts, fan accounts and news organizations.
• New media entities, especially on the right, benefit from the new dynamics.
• Any media company or person with a big following that trusts them to help make sense of the world around them (the mission of Axios). Tech execs tell us this shifting reality presents new opportunities for trusted names in media to help readers navigate the information landscape.
• Most worrisome, malicious actors who want to spread misinformation at scale with scant policing. Russia, China and others are quite adept at this and now face less resistance.

Reality check: Trump, Musk, and Zuckerberg are beneficiaries — but are proactive architects, not passive winners.

Eye on the prize: Musk is trying to use this power to shape public opinion in the U.S., Britain and Germany in ways that help his political and business interests. Musk and Trump are of one mind on most topics — giving each more power.

• Zuckerberg is basically using the Musk playbook: Align with and back Trump, make plain his company is moving in a more MAGA-friendly direction, and stop policing his platforms in ways that bother either Trump or his supporters.
• Friends of Zuckerberg tell us this is what he long wanted to do, but felt he couldn't for internal and external reasons. Now it's easy.

Beyond replacing fact-checking, Meta also said it will bring back more political content to its platforms and end restrictions on certain topics "out of touch with mainstream discourse," Zuckerberg said in his announcement video, "like immigration and gender."

• It also will adjust filters scanning for policy violations to tackle only illegal and "high severity" violations. Those include topics like terrorism, child sexual exploitation, drugs, fraud and scams.
• The company's U.S. content review team will move to Texas from California. Zuckerberg said that will help Meta "build trust to do this work in places where there is less concern about the bias of our teams." X last year announced the creation of a safety unit in Texas.

What to watch: One company struggling in this new environment is the Washington Post, which is bleeding talent and facing an internal revolt.

• We hear Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, who owns the Post, wants to make it a publication for "all of America," with a heavy emphasis on social media, not traditional media popularity.
• Relatedly, the Post said Tuesday that it'll abandon longtime efforts to promote its scoops to TV and other legacy outlets, to expand "beyond traditional media to reach new audiences."

Why it matters to you: The burden now falls on you to find sources of information you trust for reliable truth. That means better scrutinizing not only the publications you choose, but the individuals you follow on social media. That's a lot to ask — but it's the new necessity.

• Axios' Sara Fischer and Scott Rosenberg contributed reporting.