Zuckerberg Declares War on Censorship (Not Really Though)

Zuck speaks

Today Mark Zuckerberg announced his plan for “restoring free expression on our platforms,” going as far as saying “the US government has pushed for censorship.” A review of Meta’s newly updated policies, however, reveals that the changes are largely cosmetic. Many continue to evince the same deference to government wishes that Zuckerberg claims to be fighting against, like Meta’s ongoing blanket ban on “information obtained from hacked sources” regardless of whether it’s newsworthy.

Screenshot of Meta policy

Far from an abstract concern, policies like these actively deprive the public of news. When I published the hacked research dossier on Senator Marco Rubio last year, Meta suspended all links to the article after receiving a notification from the FBI, as I reported at the time. And when I published a similarly hacked dossier about then-VP candidate JD Vance, resulting in a visit from an FBI agent, it may have violated Meta’s policies to even report that agent’s name. That’s thanks to Meta’s still-active ban on content “Outing the undercover status of law enforcement, military or security personnel…”

Here’s some other 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?)

• “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 post the Mangione manifesto? 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?)

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, my former Intercept colleagues 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”?

The flood of major media commentary that followed Zuckerberg’s announcement mostly focused on whether he had gone too far in the direction of free speech; none seemed to ask whether the actual policies matched his promises. The media freakout is a PR boon for Meta, which has gone out of its way in recent weeks to ingratiate itself with the incoming Trump administration. Last month, Meta donated $1 million to Trump’s inaugural fund. Today, Zuckerberg’s announcement coincided with an appearance by top Meta executive Joel Kaplan on Fox & Friends, a favorite program of Trump’s. By some mysterious coincidence, Kaplan happened to by available in studio at exactly the moment Fox News issued an alert about Zuckerberg’s announcement.

“Wow, this is a big deal!” cooed Fox & Friends host Ainsley Earhardt at the start of the interview.

“Is there anything bigger to talk about?” chimed in Brian Kilmeade.

Screenshot of Fox & Friends interview of Joel Kaplan

The hosts enumerated issues Meta would be lifting restrictions on, including immigration and gender identity. In fairness, the platform’s decision to replace its officious “fact checking” staff with a user-run community notes feature is a positive development (though I wonder if Meta, which has laid off large numbers of employees each year since 2022, was simply looking to reduce headcount.)

Kaplan, Meta’s Chief Global Affairs Officer said that people increasingly want to debate “sensitive topics,” things like “immigration, trans issues, gender.”

But the American people want to debate a whole lot more than that, including issues no less sensitive, as the murder of the UnitedHealthcare CEO made clear, and the Gaza War before that, and perhaps soon the Ukraine War. For those many millions of Americans, Zuckerberg has nothing to offer.