Mark Zuckerberg says Facebook is returning to its free speech roots.
Can we believe him?
While the restrictions on what you can talk about on Facebook are still pretty extensive, Zuckerberg’s outfit, Meta, is apparently ending the reign of “fact-checkers” on Facebook and Instagram, as well as the platforms’ collusion with federal government “fact-checkers.”
On Monday, I discussed the federal government’s screaming fits that led Facebook to ramp up “content moderation,” which I identified with a less euphemistic c‑word. But that word choice remains controversial. For example, a “global network of fact-checking organizations,” the International Fact-Checking Network, which includes Agence France Presse, objects to Zuckerberg’s assumption that Meta helped impose censorship.
“This is false, and we want to set the record straight, both for today’s context and for the historical record,” announced IFCN. The Network then “warned of the potentially devastating impact if the group were to end its worldwide programs.…”
If censoring in obedience to government demands is not censorship, what could be? The article doesn’t explain. AFP and IFCN are simply saying that they don’t want freedom of speech; it’s dangerous.
Of course, free speech can have costs.
But censorship does too: suppression of truth and impeding the means of learning truth.
The article doesn’t report on the costs of suppressing facts about, say, COVID-19, vaccines, U.S. policy, UFOs, or Hunter Biden’s laptop.
AFP and IFCN simply assume that gatekeepers like themselves, with a vested interest in excluding divergent reports and viewpoints, must be allowed to keep excluding differing views and inconvenient facts from the “safe spaces” that apparently include all the very biggest spaces on the Internet.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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