"Allowing hate speech and harmful content online has real world consequences. Regulating such content is not censorship," Volker Turk said on X.

"My Office calls for accountability and governance in the digital space, in line with human rights."

Meta chief executive Mark Zuckerberg announced Tuesday the group would "get rid of fact-checkers" and replace them with community-based posts, starting in the United States, complaining the programme had made "too many mistakes and too much censorship".

Instead, Meta platforms including Facebook and Instagram, "would use community notes similar to X (formerly Twitter), starting in the US," he added.

Meta's surprise announcement echoed long-standing complaints by Trump's Republican Party and X owner Elon Musk about fact-checking, which many conservatives see as censorship.

AFP is currently a partner of Meta's third-party fact-checking programme.

Asked about whether the UN might reevaluate its presence on Meta and X, UN spokesman Michele Zaccheo said the organisation was "constantly watching this space and evaluating it".

But for now "it's important for us to be present with fact-based information".

World Health Organization spokeswoman Margaret Harris agreed.

"Our role is to provide good science-based health information, and we need to provide that wherever people are looking for it," she told reporters.

"So we will (be) across all platforms, whenever possible."

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