Zuckerberg Announces "Drastic Reduction" in "Censorship;" Says "Fact-Checkers" are "Too Politically Biased," Says US Government "Has Pushed For Censorship"

Total vindication.

You're going to see so much vindication you'll get tired of all the vindication.

Meta is ending its fact-checking program and lifting restrictions on speech to "restore free expression" across Facebook, Instagram and Meta platforms, admitting its current content moderation practices have "gone too far."

"We're going to get back to our roots and focus on reducing mistakes, simplifying our policies and restoring free expression on our platforms," Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a video posted Tuesday morning. "More specifically, we're going to get rid of fact-checkers and replace them with Community Notes similar to X, starting in the U.S."

In his announcement, posted below the fold, he called out these "fact-checkers" as "too politically biased."

Bear in mind these fake "third-party" "fact-checkers" were demanded into existence by the left and the US government under Biden. They needed some supposedly non-governmental third-party censors, and the "fact-checkers" were willed into being through leftwing NGO funding and, yes, government funding.

They never existed to check "facts." They existed to provide a figleaf of plausible deniability for government-mandated censors to suppress any information the leftwing government didn't want people to know or speak about.

Meta's chief global affairs officer, Joel Kaplan, joined Fox News Channel's "Fox & Friends" Tuesday morning for an exclusive interview to discuss the changes.

"This is a great opportunity for us to reset the balance in favor of free expression. As Mark says in that video, what we're doing is we're getting back to our roots and free expression," Kaplan told "Fox & Friends."

By the way, don't think that I think Zuckerberg is a hero. I don't. He's a villain.

But in walking away from his villainy, he's conceding that the villains have been defeated.

The left is a defeated army and the deserters are streaming out of it and putting on the uniforms of the winning side.

Meta's third-party fact-checking program was put in place after the 2016 election and had been used to "manage content" and misinformation on its platforms, largely due to "political pressure," executives said, but admitted the system has "gone too far."

"We went to independent, third-party fact-checkers," Kaplan told Fox News Digital in an interview. "It has become clear there is too much political bias in what they choose to fact-check because, basically, they get to fact-check whatever they see on the platform."

Kaplan told Fox News Digital that Meta is "ending that completely" and will replace it with a "Community Notes" model similar to the one used on X, formerly Twitter.

"Instead of going to some so-called expert, it instead relies on the community and the people on the platform to provide their own commentary to something that they've read," Kaplan explained, noting that if a note gets support from "the broadest cross-section of users," that note can be attached to the content for others to see.
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"We think that's a much better approach rather than relying on so-called experts who bring their own biases into the program," Kaplan said.

More vindication: Zuckerberg and Kaplan both admit that they've been censoring the actual debate over transgenderism to favor the transgender cultists.

Kaplan also told Fox News Digital that Meta is changing some of its own content moderation rules, especially those that they feel are "too restrictive and not allowing enough discourse around sensitive topics like immigration, trans issues and gender."

"We want to make sure that discourse can happen freely on the platform without fear of censorship," Kaplan told Fox News Digital. "We have the power to change the rules and make them more supportive of free expression. And we're not just changing the rules, we are actually changing how we enforce the rules."

....

Last year, Zuckerberg sent a letter to the House Judiciary Committee in which he admitted that he felt pressure from the Biden administration, particularly with regard to COVID content, and even items like satire and humor.

"The thing is, as American companies, when other governments around the world that don't have our tradition or our First Amendment, when they see the United States government pressuring U.S. companies to take down content, it is just open season then for those governments to put more pressure [on their companies]," Kaplan explained. "We do think it is a real opportunity to work with the Trump administration and to work on free expression at home."

The WSJ's write up includes this admission that the Army of Censorship lost the war:

"We've reached a point where it's just too many mistakes and too much censorship," he said.

"The recent elections also feel like a cultural tipping point towards once again prioritizing speech."

Zuckerberg directly referenced Trump several times in the video, criticizing the legacy media for their coverage of his first term in office. He also said that fact-checkers had become "too politically biased."

For his part, Trump is willing to forgive Zuckerberg and welcome him into MAGA.

In an exclusive interview with Fox News Digital, Trump said he thinks Meta's "presentation was excellent."

"They have come a long way," Trump said.

Your own reaction to one of history's greatest censors experiencing a deathbed epiphany may vary.

One thing I would say, though: He could have just quietly walked back his censorship regime. He didn't have to admit that he made a mistake -- the media companies sure don't.

And even though he minimized his own role in censorship, throwing blame at the Biden Administration and "legacy media" for demanding censorship, 1, it's totally true that Biden and Brian Stelter both demanded censorship daily and 2, it's a good thing that he's calling those bad actors out as the main drivers of censorship.

This isn't a quiet walking away from censorship; this is a loud public denunciation of it.

That is big.

I mean, he's announcing that the transgender cult has forced everyone to sing from their hymnbook. He didn't have to say that. He chose to.

This is a huge moment. I'm willing to give Zuckerberg some credit. Not a lot, but definitely some.

He didn't just desert the losing army, he came over with a chest full of secret documents from the losing army's high command.

He might also sense that the cultural shift is more profound that even we suspect. And he'd be in a position to know that, given that his company collects everyone's data and clicking habits every single day.

posted by Ace at 12:08 PM

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