Why Facebook’s About-Face Is Turning Heads
President Donald Trump’s inauguration is just around the corner. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg donated $1 million to the inauguration fund. Jeff Bezos and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman did the same. Zuckerberg, however, has gone further, actually announcing real policy change that the incoming Trump administration will approve of.
Many conservatives are dismissive of Zuckerberg’s announcement that Meta will no longer censor political speech, mute conversations about hot-button social issues, and discontinue its egregious “fact-checking” program. They ought not to be. I believe the change is real and the motivation genuine.
Meta’s censorship sins run very, very deep.
As early as 2015, Meta (then Facebook) was putting its thumb on the scale in favor of Left-wing politicians. It interfered in the 2016 election by suppressing stories critical of Hillary Clinton. In 2018, the company was actively working to prevent Republican candidates from communicating with their constituents. In 2020, it was secretly colluding with the Justice Department to keep the American people from learning about the Hunter Biden laptop. That action alone may have cost Donald Trump his reelection.
On issue after issue, Facebook has deliberately attempted to suppress free speech. Conservatives questioning COVID and its origins have found themselves censored, even banned from the platform. Ditto for anyone questioning climate change. Ditto for anyone questioning child mutilation.
- Condemn illegal immigration — censored.
- Promote the pro-life cause — censored.
- State that Biden was putting America into a recession — censored.
- Object to federally-funded crack pipes — censored.
- Criticize the “Zuckerbucks” scheme to hijack local elections — adios.
The list is seemingly endless. At the MRC we have tabulated 1,725 times Meta has censored conservatives. Tens of thousands of conservatives have been banned — and that includes the president of the United States.
Some have suggested that the president-elect put the fear of the Lord into Zuckerberg when they met at Mar-a-Lago recently, and perhaps that’s true. Nevertheless, it would be a mistake to simply conclude that Meta’s “about-face” this week was motivated merely out of fear of reprisals.
Consider: Zuckerberg could have resolved the problem by just putting an end to it. No video, no public humiliation. Just a four word memo to his staff: “You censor, you’re out.” It was as simple as not giving cause for future complaints.
But that’s not what he did. He released a video he knew would become front page news nationwide. In it, he unequivocally admitted conservatives had been right all along; unequivocally acknowledged Meta had violated the public trust by suppressing free speech; and unequivocally committed to a new policy championing the First Amendment.
He also fired his entire so-called “fact-checking” operation. These were the hardened leftists responsible for the bulk of that fascistic censorship. They were the fuel behind the killing machine of any user’s account that posted stories about election interference, Joe Biden’s mental acuity, or the origins of the Wuhan virus.
But then he added something else. He announced he is moving the remainder of the content team out of Palo Alto, which he once described to me as the “heart of leftism in America,” and into the heart of freedom — Texas.
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Conservatives should consider that if there were anything like a Christmas card list in Palo Alto, his name has been scratched off. In the eyes of Silicon Valley, Zuckerberg is a traitor.
Let’s be clear: Zuckerberg is a leftist, of the hard Left variety. So why put out that video? Because one can be on the far-Left of the political spectrum and still be a champion of free speech. Ironically, it has historically been this community, driven by libertine impulses, that most embraced free speech.
I have met and corresponded with Zuckerberg several times. I believe he’s in this camp. I also believe that within the Meta universe, there will be plenty of employees who will try to undermine him, just as Twitter employees tried with Elon Musk. Censorship will continue; leftists who understand the power of social media are not about to relinquish it. But maybe, just maybe, it will be the exception to the rule. Maybe, just maybe, the rules have changed.
Time will tell. Trust, but verify.
But let the conversation continue. If you thought Meta was bad, it has been angelic compared to Google. That company is out of control with its efforts to undermine democracy and Congressional hearings are in order to investigate their activities. TikTok is a tool of the Chinese government, the greatest threat to the United States, and has no business being in business in our country.
There are many other ventures on the rise in the emerging AI world that will certainly threaten conservatives’ ability to communicate in the public square. All must be confronted.
But for the moment, let’s consider that maybe, just maybe, Mark Zuckerberg has done something good.
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L. Brent Bozell III is the founder and president of the Media Research Center and founder of the Free Speech Alliance.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.