The co-chair of the independent panel that reviews Facebook and Instagram content said she was “very concerned” about the impact parent company Meta’s decision to scrap fact-checkers will have on minority groups.

Meta watchdog Helle Thorning-Schmidt told the BBC she welcomed aspects of the switch that would see users decide the accuracy of posts using X-style “community notes”.

However, she added on BBC Radio Four’s Today program that there were “huge problems” with the announcements, including the potential impact on the LGBTQ+ community as well as gender and transgender rights.

“We see many cases where hate speech can lead to real harm, so we will be monitoring this area very carefully,” she said.

Posted in a video In addition to a blog post from the company on Tuesday, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said the decision was motivated by “a return to our roots around free expression.”

He said the third-party fact-checkers currently used by the company were “too politically biased,” meaning too many users were being “censored.”

The decision has raised questions about the survival of the board, which was funded by Meta and was founded by then-president of global affairs Sir Nick Clegg. who announced he was leaving the company less than a week ago.

Ms Thorning-Schmidt – a former prime minister of Denmark – stressed that the changes to fact-checking are more necessary than ever.

“That’s why it’s good that we have an oversight board that can discuss this transparently with Meta,” she said.

She welcomed some of Meta’s announcements about moderation, including a goal of finding a new way to fact-check after cases of “over-enforcement” that landed people in “Facebook Jail.”

While Meta says the move, originally introduced in the US, is about free speech, others say it is an attempt to get closer to the new Trump administration and seek its access and influence another tech titan, Elon Musk.

Tech journalist and author Kara Swisher told the BBC it was “the most cynical move” she had made to Mr Zuckerberg in the “many years” she had been covering him.

“Facebook does whatever is in its own interest,” she told Today.

“He wants to give Donald Trump a kiss and catch up with Elon Musk in the process.”

However, during Activists against online hate speech reacted with dismay to the change Some free speech advocates welcomed the news.

US free speech group Fire said: “Meta’s announcement shows the marketplace of ideas in action. Users want a social media platform that doesn’t suppress political content or employ top-down fact-checkers.”

“These changes will hopefully lead to fewer arbitrary moderation decisions and freer expression on Meta’s platforms.”

After the changes were announced, Trump said at a news conference that he was impressed by Mr. Zuckerberg’s decision and that Meta had “come a long way.”

Asked whether Mr. Zuckerberg was responding “directly” to threats Trump had made to him in the past, the new US president replied: “Probably.”

Mr. Zuckerberg acknowledged on Tuesday that the change in strategy carries some risk for the company.

“This means we will catch fewer bad things, but we will also reduce the number of innocent people’s posts and accounts that we accidentally delete,” he said in his video message.

X’s transition to a more hands-off approach to content moderation has helped it achieve great success Disputes with advertisers.

Jasmine Enberg, an analyst at Insider Intelligence, said this is also a risk for Meta.

“Meta’s massive size and powerful advertising platform somewhat protects the company from an X-like churn of users and advertisers,” she told the BBC.

“But brand safety remains a key factor in how advertisers spend their budgets – any major decline in engagement could hurt Meta’s ad business given the intense competition for users and advertising dollars.”