Dana White was announced as one of three new members to Meta's board of directors as founder Mark Zuckerberg claims the company will move away from fact-checking and censorship.
The UFC president was announced alongside Stellantis and Ferrari Chairman John Elkann and Charlie Songhurst, former general manager and head of global corporate strategy at Microsoft.
"I love social media. And I'm excited to be a small part of the future of AI and emerging technologies," White wrote on his X page.
"I've never been interested in joining a board of directors until I got the offer to join Meta's board. I am a huge believer that social media and Al are the future," White continued. "There is nothing I love more than building brands, and I look forward to helping take Meta to the next level."
Accompanying the statement was a photo of White and Zuckerberg, along with a statement from the Facebook boss himself.
"Dana is the President and CEO of UFC, and he has built it into one of the most valuable, fastest growing, and most popular sports enterprises in the world. I've admired him as an entrepreneur and his ability to build such a beloved brand," Zuckerberg said.
'Even the US government has pushed for censorship.'
The new additions to Meta's board came just a day before Zuckerberg announced a massive shift in policy, signaling a desire — if you believe him — to decrease political censorship.
Zuckerberg spoke in a video about getting back to his company's "roots around free expression."
He included a five-point plan meant to "give people a voice."
"We've reached a point where it's just too many mistakes and too much censorship," Zuckerberg began. "Even if they accidentally censor just 1% of posts, that's millions of people."
The Facebook founder said his company would be getting rid of fact-checkers, replaced by "community notes similar to X."
Second, Zuckerberg said Meta would "simplify" its content policies and "get rid of a bunch of restrictions" on topics like immigration and gender.
"What started as a movement to be more inclusive has increasingly been used to shut down opinions and shut out people with different ideas and it's gone too far. So I wanna make sure that people can share their beliefs and experiences on our platforms," he explained.
Zuckerberg's third point surrounded filters that "scanned for any policy violation."
The filters will now allegedly focus on "tackling illegal and high severity violations."
"The problem is that the filters make mistakes and they take down a lot of content that they shouldn't. So by dialing them back, we're gonna dramatically reduce the amount of censorship on our platforms."
Ending censorship?
Zuckerberg said he planned on working with President Trump to push back on governments around the world that attempt to pressure American companies into censorship.
"We're bringing back civic content," Zuckerberg announced. "For a while, the community asked to see less because it was making people stressed," he claimed.
Zuckerberg then said Meta stopped recommending political content, but now that it "feels like we're in a new era," users have seemingly let the platform know they want to see this content.
The 40-year-old went on to describe government censorship efforts around the world, including in the United States. Pointing to Europe "institutionalizing censorship," "secret courts" in Latin America, and China simply banning his apps, Zuckerberg said that "even the U.S. government has pushed for censorship" in the last four years.
"But now, we have the opportunity to restore free expression and I am excited to take it," he added. "It'll take time to get this right and these are complex systems. They're never gonna be perfect," Zuckerberg continued.
Perhaps as a show of good faith, Meta's trust and safety and content moderation teams will allegedly be moved from California to Texas so there is "less concern about the bias" of their teams.
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