(Julianna Frieman, Headline USA) Meta announced early Tuesday that it will get rid of its politically biased fact-checkers, among other content moderation modifications—and a company executive took to Fox News to blame the Biden administration for censorship on Facebook and Instagram.
With less than two weeks until President-elect Donald Trump takes office, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said his social media platforms will restore free speech and shift focus to intervention according to the law.
NEW: Mark Zuckerberg announces massive new changes at META, admits the company went too far with censoring Americans.
Good.
Zuckerberg also said they are moving the content moderation team from California to Texas.
Here is what will be changing at Meta:
1. Meta will be… pic.twitter.com/RJelCRf3S5
— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) January 7, 2025
The big tech company claimed its fact-check policy was “well-intentioned at the outset,” according to Meta Chief Global Affairs Officer Joel Kaplan, but “too much political bias” infiltrated the scrapped system.
“If you can say it on TV, you can say it on the floor of Congress, you certainly ought to be able to say it on Facebook and Instagram,” the Meta executive added.
Fox News host asks Meta executive point blank if Facebook, Instagram were “doing something wrong” censoring free speech.
“…Well-intentioned at the outset, but there’s just been too much political bias in what they choose to fact-check.” pic.twitter.com/nd6WqoNJyY
— Julianna Frieman (@JuliannaFrieman) January 7, 2025
Meta Chief Global Affairs Officer Joel Kaplan:
“If you can say it on TV, you can say it on the floor of Congress, you certainly ought to be able to say it on Facebook and Instagram.” pic.twitter.com/XLuEmmkB4q
— Julianna Frieman (@JuliannaFrieman) January 7, 2025
Meta’s departure from censorship came after a two-year Facebook and Instagram ban was imposed on Trump following the 2020 election.
The company lifted Trump’s ban ahead of the Republican Party convention in 2023, stating, “we don’t want to get in the way of open, public and democratic debate on Meta’s platforms—especially in the context of elections in democratic societies like the United States.”
Walking away from leftist dogma that led Meta platforms to interfere in the 2020 election through censorship of conservative influencers and crucial stories like the New York Post’s Hunter Biden laptop bombshell, Zuckerberg landed on lifting restrictions on certain topics and removing the reduction of political content.
Zuckerberg’s new affinity for Trump came after Tesla and SpaceX founder Elon Musk, who bought Twitter and reformed it as the free speech haven X, became a key ally to the president-elect.
In a move viewed as best for business and most favorable to the incoming administration, Meta adopted Musk’s community notes system to replace its fact-checkers.
JUST IN: Meta executive says Facebook, Instagram will abandon biased fact-checkers and adopt Elon Musk’s community notes feature. pic.twitter.com/mVZsQjG01c
— Julianna Frieman (@JuliannaFrieman) January 7, 2025
“The idea was they’re independent fact-checkers, but they’ve just been too biased,” Kaplan told Fox News. “What we’re going to do instead is adopt a system like X has.”
Meta will also relocate its Safety and Trust team out of California and to Texas—the same state where Musk moved SpaceX.
Kaplan told Fox News that the Biden administration’s social media censorship made it “open season” for other countries to trounce on free speech.
The Meta executive admitted that the Democrat-run government put “a lot of pressure” on the company to especially censorship “humor and satire” related to the COVID-19 pandemic and vaccines.
Meta executive Joel Kaplan says Biden’s social media censorship made it “open season” for other countries to suppress free speech. pic.twitter.com/DaHWVtRd5M
— Julianna Frieman (@JuliannaFrieman) January 7, 2025
Meta executive Joel Kaplan admits the Biden administration put “a lot of pressure” on Facebook, Instagram to censor COVID-19 “humor and satire.” pic.twitter.com/SXHGbtUhf7
— Julianna Frieman (@JuliannaFrieman) January 7, 2025
“We did experience that kind of pressure,” Kaplan confessed on Fox and Friends, although he acknowledged Meta decided on its own to abide by the Democrats’ demands.
Meta donated $1 million to Trump’s inauguration fund in December, just as other big tech billionaires, including Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, did the same. The Meta CEO met with Trump at Mar-a-Lago in late November.
Late Monday, Ultimate Fighting Championship boss Dana White, who made key campaign appearances for Trump, was revealed to be a new member on Meta’s board of directors as the company’s politics shift.
White wrote on X, “I love social media. And I’m excited to be a small part of the future of AI and emerging technologies.”
I love social media. And I’m excited to be a small part of the future of AI and emerging technologies. @Meta pic.twitter.com/Amh5W728og
— danawhite (@danawhite) January 6, 2025
Kaplan told Fox News of Trump, “There’s no question that there’s an opportunity here with a new president taking office, as I said, he really believes in free expression. That’s just gonna give us the space to get back to those values.”
Julianna Frieman is a freelance writer published by the Daily Caller, Headline USA, The Federalist, and the American Spectator. Follow her on Twitter at @JuliannaFrieman.
