Conservatives praised Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg for reining in the company's longstanding practices of censoring political speech.
Facebook, which has faced pressure from the Biden administration to tackle censorship, plans to end its fact-checking program and replace it with a community notes approach. Deliver a more personalized approach to political content. We're also removing some content policies around high-profile issues and refocusing our automated moderation system on “higher severity violations.”
“We're going back to basics and focusing on reducing mistakes, simplifying policies, and restoring free expression on our platform,” Zuckerberg said. announced Tuesday. “More specifically, here's what we're going to do. First, we're going to remove fact checkers from the US and replace them with community notes like X.”
X users were quick to cheer Zuckerberg's shift in the company's direction toward free speech.
“The future of free speech online is looking better than ever” Charlie Kirk Posted. “Time will tell how successful Mr. Zuckerberg will be in implementing some of these changes, but these are bold steps in the right direction and we should expect their success. ”
Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) Posted:”@meta Finally acknowledging censorship of speech…what a great birthday present to wake up to and a huge victory for free speech. ”
X Account DC Drain said Elon Musk's acquisition of Twitter was a catalyst for restoring free speech.
“Elon didn't just spend $44 billion defending free speech about X,” he said. Posted “He defends free speech on Facebook, Instagram, and Threads, and Meta is worth over $1.5 trillion. You could say Elon got a pretty good deal.”
Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch, declared Facebook's new direction as “a retreat from political censorship.”
Great news: Facebook/@meta Show your support for more free speech – retreat from political censorship! @meta Ending the third-party fact-checking program that allowed the left to censor conservative speech and moving to a community note model based on: @Elon Musk's @X;Change our content policy to remove some restrictions and create more room for discussion and debate on topics such as immigration, sexual identity, and gender issues. Simplify the system to reduce over-policing and mistakes by focusing enforcement on illegal and serious violations such as terrorism, drugs, fraud, and fraud. And we plan to begin phasing back civic content so that people who want to see more political content in their feed can do so, using a more personalized approach and control.
Not all conservatives praised Zuckerberg. There were also concerns that this change was due to the incoming Trump administration.
“With President Trump's inauguration just around the corner, Meta has reportedly decided to stop censoring conservatives,” said Sen. Marsha Blackburn. said. “This is a ploy to avoid regulation. We will not be fooled.”
Wendell Husebo is a political reporter for Breitbart News and a former RNC war room analyst. He is the author of The Politics of Slave Morality. Follow Wendell “×” @WendellHusebø or society of truth @WendellHusebo.
