Newsfront
Facebook, Instagram Vow to Stop Censoring Conservatives
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conservative voices, and moving to a “community notes” model.
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course and focusing enforcement on illegal and high-severity violations.
their feeds can. “We’re going to get rid of fact
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checkers and replace them with com- munity notes similar to X, starting in the U.S.,” Zuckerberg said in a video. “The recent elections also feel like
a cultural tipping point toward, once again, prioritizing speech,” he said. “So we’re gonna get back to our
roots and focus on reducing mistakes, simplifying our policies, and restoring free expression on our platforms.” Zuckerberg’s announcement comes
less than two months after Com- missioner Brendan Carr, the senior Republican on the Federal Commu-
10 NEWSMAX | FEBRUARY 2025
Increasing the personalization of political content so people who want to see more of it in
Allowing more speech by lift- ing restrictions on some topics that are part of mainstream dis-
“There’s zero chance this would have happened if Trump didn’t win.” BY CHARLIE MCCARTHY
n a victory for free speech on social media, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg unveiled major changes to the way it monitors
content on its platforms. The changes affect Facebook and Instagram, two of the world’s largest social media platforms, and came as the new Trump administration says it will make dealing with censorship a priority.
Zuckerberg announced three key takeaways:
Ending a third-party fact-check- ing program, put in after the 2016 election that aimed at censoring
nications Commission and President Donald Trump’s proposed chair- man, demanded Big Tech companies fess up about their censor- ship activities targeting conservatives under the Biden administration. Carr asserted that
these media monitors and fact checkers mas- querade as truth arbiters, but their real purpose has been “to defund, demonetize, and other- wise put out of business news out- lets” that differed from establishment media thinking. Carr specifically identified in his
letter left-wing media monitor News- Guard, which exists to “censor free speech and conservative news outlets.” NewsGuard was founded in 2018
by Steven Brill, who has acted for decades as a Democratic Party donor, advocate, and activist. Conservatives have been per-
plexed by NewsGuard, described as a left-wing organization by the Media Research Center, which has been used by major social media platforms and advertising firms to decide who gets web traffic and advertising rev- enues.
Respected legal scholar Jonathan
Turley has described NewsGuard’s activities as “Orwellian,” pushing censorship and “blacklisting.” Turley notes the NewsGuard
reports are “highly subjective” and not based on objective criteria. He was surprised NewsGuard demanded his blog be described as “conservative.” Elon Musk has called NewsGuard
a “scam” and says it is blatantly push- ing a “political agenda” by seeking to censor alternative points of view. He
has argued the organization should be “disbanded immediately.” Zuckerberg, whose company espe-
cially targeted conservative voices fol- lowing the Jan. 6, 2021, attack at the U.S. Capitol, has been trying to repair his relationship with Trump after the Nov. 5 election, where he earned an electoral landslide victory over former Vice President Kamala Harris. The CEO dined with Trump at Mar-a-Lago in late November and Meta donated $1 million to Trump’s inaugural fund. Last month, Meta acknowledged “harmless content” was too often removed from its social media plat- forms during election season, infring- ing on “the free expression we set out to enable.”
Conservatives on social media took
a victory lap in response to the news. “Meta finally admits to censoring
speech . . . what a great birthday pres- ent to wake up to and a huge win for free speech,” GOP Sen. Rand Paul posted on X. “There is absolutely zero chance
this would have happened if Trump didn’t win,” Abigail Jackson, commu- nications director for Missouri GOP Sen. Josh Hawley, posted on X.
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