Friends — Facebook’s reversal on censorship is as big of a deal as it looks. This free speech victory could not have happened without your support. Over the last two years, Public has published hundreds of articles about censorship and dozens of them about Facebook, including some of the first articles about Facebook’s internal conversations discussing the Biden Administration’s demands for censorship. I personally was censored by Facebook in 2020, making this victory particularly sweet. But our work is not over. Europe is once again threatening to censor social media, and Brazil’s censorship is worse than ever. The good news is that Zuckerberg has thrown his support behind the free speech movement. But the reality is that we cannot rely on him. We need a free speech movement. And that movement consists first and foremost of you. Please, if you’re not already a subscriber, subscribe now so we can shut down the Censorship Industrial Complex, once and for all. — Michael
The decision by Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg to crowdsource fact-checking, move content moderation from California to Texas, and advocate for free speech around the world will result in a flood of real-world violence, dangerous disinformation, and conspiracy theories, say experts and the media. Zuckerberg is “giving the green light for people to target LGBTQ people, women, immigrants, and other marginalized groups with violence, vitriol, and dehumanizing narratives,” said the President of GLAAD. “Fact-checking and hate speech policies protect free speech.”
