“Faithful friends are hard to find.” For the free speech community, those words from Shakespeare have long been tragically true. Indeed, until tech billionaire Elon Musk bought Twitter (now X), we were losing ground around the world to an unprecedented anti-free speech coalition of government, corporate, media, and academic interests.
Now, Musk may have added a major new ally that could help turn the tide for free speech: Mark Zuckerberg.
In a new video, Meta’s CEO announced that the company would adopt X standards and restore free speech protections across Facebook, Instagram, and Meta platforms. Meta will also end its third-party fact-checking program, introduce a ‘community notes’ system, and focus on removing criminal and fraudulent material—the very guidelines proposed by some of us in prior years.
For the free speech community, it was like the United States entering World War II to support Great Britain. Where Musk stopped the progress of the global anti-free speech movement, Zuckerberg could actually help us regain ground around the world.
As one of Zuckerberg’s most vocal critics over free speech, it is admittedly hard to trust the Meta CEO. We all love redemptive sinners, but it would be more impressive if the redemption preceded the apprehension.
So, allow me a brief cathartic moment…
In the last few years, a mix of House investigations and litigation has forced more of the censorship system under the Biden administration into public view. That is expected to draw even greater attention with the continued discovery in Missouri v. Biden, showing years of false statements about the extent of this government-corporate alliance across social media platforms.
In my recent book, “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage,” I wrote about Zuckerburg and Meta’s record on censorship, including their failure (until recently) to release the Facebook files.
Meta resisted efforts to uncover this evidence for years, even after Musk released the Twitter Files and revealed a censorship system described by one court as perfectly “Orwellian.”
While Zuckerburg portrayed Meta as an unwilling partner in this censorship system in his Tuesday video, he and the company ignored several years of objections from many of us regarding the critical role the company plays in targeting and censoring opposing viewpoints.
Facebook even ran a creepy ad campaign to try to convince young people to embrace what they call “content modification” as part of their evolution with technology. It did not work.
When the anti-free speech movement targeted Musk, Zuckerberg did nothing for years. Fearing that other companies might restore free speech protections, members of Congress, including now Sen. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., and Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., sent a chilling letter to Facebook stating that it should not even consider such a move or risk becoming “part of our ongoing oversight efforts.”
In a November 2020 Senate hearing, Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., warned Zuckerberg and other CEOs that he and his Senate colleagues would not tolerate any “backsliding or retrenching” by “failing to take action against dangerous disinformation.”
While Musk defied those threats, the pressure seemed to work with Zuckerberg. It was not until the Republicans won both houses and the White House that Zuckerberg and Meta decided that free speech was worth fighting for.
In his exclusive interview with Fox News on Tuesday, Meta’s chief global affairs officer, Joel Kaplan, admitted that the Trump election changed the situation for the technology company: “We have a new administration coming in that is far from pressuring companies to censor and [is more] a huge supporter of free expression.”
It is a chilling statement if one thinks of what might have happened if Kamala Harris and Tim Walz, arguably the most anti-free speech ticket in history, had won. The suggestion is that the new spring at Meta would have turned into a frozen tundra for free speech.
Around the world, free speech is in a free fall. Speech crimes and censorship have become the norm in the West. A new industry of “disinformation” experts has commoditized censorship, making millions in the targeting and silencing of others. An anti-free speech culture has taken root in government, higher education, and the media.
We will either hold the line now or lose this indispensable right for future generations. Zuckerberg could make this a truly transformative moment but it will take more than a passing meta-culpas.
We need Zuckerberg now more than ever.
So, with that off my chest, I can get to what I have longed to say: Mr. Zuckerberg, welcome to the fight.
