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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1 reply on “When Is Censorship Not Censorship?”
At Facebook, attempt in an entry or in a comment to link to brighteon.com. You’ll get a message that your link violates what Meta calls “Community Standards”.
Now, real community standards are standards embraced by the community in question, whereäs what Meta calls “Community Standards” are rules imposed by Zuckerberg and by the perverts who work for him; but set that point aside.
Whencever these standards, censorship in conformance with them is still censorship.
Zuckerberg is a grifter. Facebook became the dominant Internet social platform by acquiring a heavy lead in subscribers and in subscriber-generated content. That content had very real economic value. Facebook got that lead by Zuckerberg’s representing it as a platform of one sort. Then, he began changing the nature of the platform, thus very literally defrauding many the generators of the content.
He’s still grifting. He knows that some of the victims of his censorship are now in control of the three branches of the Federal government; so he’s trying to win their tolerance, if not indeed their favor.
But he’s not doing any sort of 180º turn; otherwise you could make that link to brighteon.com. Moreover, if-and-when the corporate left recovers control of the legislature or of the executive branch, he’ll return to censoring on behalf of the corporate left.