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I had to marvel earlier this week at the way Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg trotted out the supposed founding vision of social media as a way to give people a voice as he announced changes to content moderation on Facebook.
I mean, who could be opposed to allowing people’s voices to be heard, to be shared?
Except… the Eden he claims he intended to build via Facebook, Instagram and Threads is anything but a garden of paradise.
Instead, what we have are platforms that spread misinformation and hate speech, sow interference in elections, and stand accused of harming kids’ mental health with their addictive algorithms, to name but a few issues.
But no need to worry. The gold-chain wearing, tech-bro styling Zuckerberg has announced that Meta is turning the page.
Mark Zuckerberg, chief executive officer of Meta, has announced the company will scrap fact-checking and loosen its rules around hate speech and abuse, a move experts worry could allow misinformation to spread even further. (David Zalubowski / The Associated Press files)
In a public-relations blog post titled “More Speech and Fewer Mistakes,’’ Zuckerberg said his metaverse will no longer employ independent fact-checkers in a move intended to “dramatically reduce the amount of censorship” on his platforms in the United States.
Instead, the Wild West to come will rely on other users to place “community notes” as warnings or to provide context, similar to what users see on Elon Musk’s X.
This race to the bottom is really going to be something to behold.
“We built a lot of complex systems to moderate content, but the problem with complex systems is they make mistakes. Even if they accidentally censor just 1% of posts, that’s millions of people, and we’ve reached a point where it’s just too many mistakes and too much censorship. The recent elections also feel like a cultural tipping point towards, once again, prioritizing speech,” Zuckerberg said, with a straight face, in his announcement.
I will refrain from commenting further on the ways Zuckerberg’s move resembles some other genuflections in Donald Trump’s direction from Silicon Valley in recent days.
I also won’t delve into the timing of his epiphany, which came on the fourth anniversary of the Jan. 6 insurrection, which Team Trump is doing its best to recast with their own revisionist history. Fact-checkers be damned.
Instead, I will simply note that Zuckerberg’s new commitment to voices being heard and shared does not appear to apply on this side of the Canada-U.S. border.
Since August 2023, Meta has silenced the voices of Canadian media on Facebook and Instagram. Newsrooms like the Free Press — which serve as independent fact-checkers and add context in the real world — remain blocked on his platforms, while misinformation and fake news run wild.
So, free speech is good and worthy of protection — as long as it doesn’t come from a free press?
Kind of sounds like censorship, to me.
And that’s not something an informed society should ever “like” on Facebook.
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