Stop pretending Meta cares about free speech

+ Galaxy Gas, a leaked Dobrik doc, the first ChatGPT terrorist, Shark Tank TikTok deal, and the worst music on IG Reels

Over the past few years, the phrase "free speech" has become a rallying cry on the right. Conservative influencers, billionaires, and millions of MAGA supporters constantly shout about the need to institute "free speech" policies across the web.

None of these groups, however, are actually interested in free speech. In fact, all of them, especially billionaires like Musk and now Zuckerberg, are engaged in aggressive efforts to censor and silence speech that challenges their viewpoints, their profits, the U.S. government, and corporate power.

This was once again made apparent on Tuesday, when Zuckerberg announced new changes to Meta's moderation systems. I've criticized Meta's blunt and biased top-down moderation efforts for years. They are draconian and have made it nearly impossible for anyone who wants to speak about news or social justice issues to speak freely. Under this new policy, none of that will appear in change.

As journalist Ken Klippenstein noted, Here’s just some of the content that remains banned on Meta (quoted directly from its policy pages):

• “Glorification” of so-called “Dangerous Organizations and Individuals” or “violent events” (e.g. expressing any level of sympathy whatsoever for Luigi Mangione or anyone else deemed “dangerous”, a highly subjective label that could apply to any activist)

• “Support” for such “dangerous individuals,” including “directly quoting” them “without caption that condemns, neutrally discusses, or is a part of news reporting” (Not a journalist but hoping to quote from the Mangione manifesto? Or a climate activist’s rallying call? Tough luck!)

• “publicly available information” that Meta considers “private” (what does that even mean?)

• “private information obtained from illegal sources” (emails hacked from a politician?)

Klippenstein writes, “The threats to free speech posed by these and other Meta policies are real and cut against Zuckerberg’s purported desire to stand up to government censorship. Guess how Meta decides what constitutes ;dangerous organizations’? By relying on the U.S. State Department’s list of terrorist groups, per a Human Rights Watch report detailing the platform’s systemic censorship of discourse on the Gaza war. For the high crime of merely interviewing Hamas officials to get them on the record, Ryan Grim and Jeremy Scahill over at Drop Site News have had their reporting removed by Meta. This is supposed to be ‘restoring free expression’?”

Of course it's not. Because Meta doesn't actually care about protecting free speech or free expression, they care about pandering to conservatives who might seek to regulate them.

Meta is facing an antitrust trial in April, and the company has lots of other business on the radar of the U.S. government. Trump has threatened to send Zuckerberg to prison for "the rest of his life,” and Brendan Carr, Trump’s new FCC chairman, aims to regulate tech companies like Meta by curbing Section 230 protections and increasing oversight. In response, Zuckerberg recently replaced Meta policy chief Nick Clegg with conservative Joel Kaplan and added Dana White, an architect of Trump’s influencer strategy, to Meta’s board.

“Today's changes seemed to be addressed directly to Trump, especially since Meta gave the exclusive to 'Fox & Friends,' one of his favorite shows," CNN’s Brian Stelter noted. “Joel Kaplan was on the show and fully agreed with Fox's ‘censorship’ versus ‘freedom’ framing.

Meta's new alleged "free speech" policies don't even seem to apply to their own employees. After Zuckerberg's announcement, the company began removing comments critical of the new policy from its internal message boards.

All of this is incredibly infuriating to the groups who continue to have their speech restricted on Meta’s platforms. As I reported on Monday, for months Meta has been blocking dozens of LGBTQ related hashtags from search and down-ranking LGBTQ content. Meta’s new “free speech” policies do nothing to ensure “errors” like this don’t continue to occur.

Billionaires like Zuckerberg aren’t champions of free expression, they’re opportunists weaponizing the concept of free speech to shield themselves from accountability and cater to an increasingly radicalized, politically motivated base. Their performative policies ultimately undermine the very principles they claim to espouse.

It’s notable that conservatives, who claim to champion free speech, have been at the forefront of efforts to restrict it. In states like Florida and Texas, laws have been passed to ban discussions of systemic racism, LGBTQ+ issues, and other topics deemed too “divisive” for schools. These are direct attacks on the free exchange of ideas, targeting educators, students, and activists who dare to challenge right wing ideology. Meanwhile, these same lawmakers demand built-in amplification across social media platforms to spread their views unchecked.

As the activist Evan Greer said, “We will never have free speech OR safety for marginalized people on platforms owned and controlled by billionaires and monopolists… We should spend less time worrying about what Zuck says and more time building a movement to dismantle Big Tech & build the Internet we need.”

What I’m reading

The Case for Letting Malibu Burn

Many of California's native ecosystems evolved to burn. Modern fire suppression creates fuels that lead to catastrophic fires. So why do people insist on rebuilding in the firebelt? - Longreads

The Anti-Social Century

Americans are now spending more time alone than ever. It’s changing our personalities, our politics, and even our relationship to reality. - The Atlantic

Did a Best-Selling Romantasy Novelist Steal Another Writer’s Story?

Tracy Wolff, the author of the “Crave” series, is being sued for copyright infringement. But romantasy’s reliance on standardized tropes makes proving plot theft tricky. - New Yorker

The Internet Is Worse Than a Brainwashing Machine

A rationale is always just a scroll or a click away. - The Atlantic

The erasure of Luigi Mangione

The saga on Stack Overflow and Stack Exchange, and how tech always serves the ruling class. - Evan Carroll

It's Not Looking Great

The slow assassination of the free press. We’re not really on the slippery slope at this point. We’re sliding. - Hamilton Nolan

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Amazon is paying $40 million to license a Melania Trump documentary.

Sweetgreen is launching a seed oil-free menu.

Shark Tank’s Kevin O’Leary says he is nearing a deal to buy TikTok’s U.S. assets ahead of the ban on January 19th.

A clip from Casey Neistat’s David Dobrik documentary leaked online right after David Dobrik returned to YouTube.

Microsoft is using Bing to trick people into thinking they’re on Google. If you use Bing to search for Google then you'll find a spoofed Google UI.

AI might soon pass the Will Smith eating pasta Turing test.

A deep dive on the rise of nitrous oxide as a recreational drug and how Galaxy Gas became the biggest brand in the game.

The Heritage Foundation plans to ‘identify and target’ Wikipedia editors.

A look at what might happen to the internet's trend-industrial complex when the TikTok ban goes into effect.

A thread of some of the worst music on IG Reels.

10 years ago, Matthew McConaughey left a voicemail for Timothée Chalamet, which the young actor has memorized. Here’s his recitation of it.

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