Mark Zuckerberg is renouncing the regime, and righting the ship.
Or, so he says.
The Meta magnate wants his platforms to reacquaint themselves with a passion for promoting freedom of speech.
Zuckerberg made the announcement in a humble – now viral – five-minute video, which promises to end Meta’s “fact” checking war on free speech.
Here are five takeaways:
1. Zuckerberg blamed the Biden administration for him not being able to hold (or move forward with) his 2019 commitments to freedom of speech.
2. All censorship was “accidental.” Despite the fact that censorship clearly favoured Democrat talking points, LGBTrans-mania, Islam, multiculturalism, Wokeism, etc.
One notable example is Facebook’s fiendish attempt to get in good with the Harris-Biden administration, through the coordinated censorship of Miranda Divine’s NY Post Hunter Biden laptop story.
This is backed by Zuckerberg’s August 2024 confession, where, in a letter published during a U.S. Senate investigation, he shared regret for Meta caving to Biden’s pressure to censor.
3. Zuckerberg inadvertently admits Meta has been complicit in giving an unfair competitive advantage to legacy media, disadvantaging new media.
4. Zuckerberg also admits “conspiracy theorists” were right by admitting that – largely left-wing – fact-checkers weren’t independent, and are ferociously politically biased.
5. Most importantly: He doesn’t apologise for any of it. Neither does he say he would reinstate accounts unfairly blocked by what I’ve previously described as Meta’s compliance with Marxian Woke authoritarianism.
Woah.
— Beff – e/acc (@BasedBeffJezos) January 7, 2025
Zuck going full anti-censorship, following Elon and X's lead
Based Zuck arc and vibe shift completepic.twitter.com/bsC7LrYL0n
While Elon Musk welcomed the news, others were more wary of it.
On X, Musk offered up a simple, “This is cool.”
Whereas The Babylon Bee’s bosses, Seth Dillon, and Joel Berry dumped on Zuckerberg’s “censorship was accidental” claims,
Dillon wrote, “The time for Zuck to take a stand for free speech was when Trump — the sitting president — was getting kicked off the Internet.
“Would have been nice to hear an acknowledgment of his role in that mistake.”
Berry added before Meta booted Trump, the Babylon Bee’s traffic was “insanely viral.”
The Bee could get “millions of views on a single article,” until “someone at Facebook pressed a button and killed our traffic overnight.
“If you want to see if Zuckerberg’s reforms are real, keep an eye on the Babylon Bee’s Facebook traffic.”
Honouring the hour, the Bee then posted a running thread highlighting “the funniest Facebook fact-checks of Babylon Bee jokes”:
In honor of Facebook ending its fact-checking partnerships, here are the funniest fact-checks of Babylon Bee jokes:
— The Babylon Bee (@TheBabylonBee) January 8, 2025
A running: pic.twitter.com/PkMd8hhssR
The outpouring of relief, frustration, and healthy scepticism, included The Federalist.
Responding on X, editor-in-chief, Mollie Hemmingway posted two scathing threads stating,
“Media outlets fit into one of three categories:
1. regime enablers and gleeful collaborators with the censorship industrial complex
2. no threat to the regime
3. HORRIFICALLY censored for years for embracing free speech and debate on all the important topics.
To this, Mollie added,
“I genuinely don’t think most of you understand how difficult it has been for those of us in group three.
“We have refused to back down to the censorship complex’s efforts to destroy,” those of us “who have fought tenaciously to report the news, who have sued the government, etc.”
The Fed said, they’re “still waiting for Facebook to atone” for the multiple times they too were censored, and/or unknowingly shadow-banned.
Caldron Pool meets Mollie’s criteria in category 3.
We’ve been slammed.
Even donor support dropped off because people were scared away from openly backing our content, even though they often privately offered words of encouragement.
The best part of this is that we shared it with over 40k followers about 40 minutes ago, and it's only attracted one interaction.
— Caldron Pool (@CaldronPool) January 7, 2025
Fix it yesterday, Mark. pic.twitter.com/EpOB1isEMS
Facebook’s censorship regime was anti-competition.
It gave unfair advantage to those who fit Mollie’s criteria for categories 1 and 2.
That there was no mention of Meta’s role in the “Trusted News Initiative” regime from 2020 onwards, suggests Zuckerberg is not as genuine as he seems.
Rebel News Australia’s Avi Yemini was also sceptical.
Writing on X, he said, he’ll believe it when he sees it.
“I won’t be holding my breath,” waiting for Zuckerberg to do the right thing, and back his words with actions, by reinstating “unfairly banned” accounts, the way Elon Musk did.
Fiery Australian Skynews’ Outsider Rita Panahi was as unforgiving.
Panahi dropped the snake emoji, noting, “Never forget this dude donated around $450 million of his own money to “fortify” the 2020 election.”
George Christensen gave the bird to fact-checkers, and a blunt “hear, hear” to Facebook adopting X’s free speech revolution, stating, “Since 2020, these guys have caused my page irreparable harm. Until now.
“So, all I have to say to those nerds and Nazis who have nothing better to do than claim that every single thing a libertarian or conservative posts is false: suck on this!”
Yemini, Panahi and Christensen’s doubt is justified.
Zuckerberg made similar commitments to freedom of speech in 2019.
His newfound moxie, is reminiscent of the then-promising Australian Prime Minister, Scott Morrison’s January 2020 anti-Woke speech.
Both Zuckerberg and Morrison’s resolve dissolved once “two-weeks to flatten the curve” turned into totalitarianism.
Zuckerberg’s failure to live by those 2019 convictions suggests Zuck doesn’t have the means or power to reign in Meta’s Marxian Woke bureaucrats.
As I wrote in my 2019 CP coverage of Zuckerberg’s fresh determination to ditch far-left fact-checkers and differentiate between advocacy and commentary – inciting and informing – actions speak louder than words.
