Facebook&#8217;s parent company Meta said that two posts that included &#8220;misgendering&#8221; were not a violation of its policies, in a case that appears to have involved content from The Daily Wire.
The social media giant&#8217;s Oversight Board ruled that two posts about trans-identifying males do not violate the company&#8217;s hate speech rules.
&#8220;Despite the intentionally provocative nature of the posts, which misgender identifiable trans people in ways many would find offensive, a majority of the Board found they related to matters of public concern and would not incite likely and imminent violence or discrimination,&#8221; the Oversight Board <a href="https://www.oversightboard.com/news/wide-ranging-decisions-protect-speech-and-address-harms/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a> in a statement on the <a href="https://www.oversightboard.com/decision/bun-1ynnk264/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">decision</a>.
Back in September, Meta&#8217;s Oversight Board <a href="https://www.oversightboard.com/news/new-cases-to-consider-debate-around-gender-identity/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">announced</a> it was looking into two posts from last year that involve videos of trans-identifying males.
One of the posts <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2025/04/23/meta-oversight-board-trans-content-moderation-hate-speech/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">appears</a> to be a video <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/C7Mk01jo1P8/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">posted</a> by Libs of TikTok on Instagram that shows an Oregon high school boy getting booed by the crowd when he finished first place in the girls’ 200-meter race.
&#8220;He&#8217;s a boy who thinks he&#8217;s a girl,&#8221; Libs of TikTok <a href="https://www.oversightboard.com/decision/bun-1ynnk264/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">captioned</a> the post.
Around the same time, The Daily Wire <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/C7PjzzrOEkE/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">posted</a> the same video on Instagram, using male pronouns for the trans-identifying high schooler.
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The other post was a video posted to Facebook showing a girl confronting a trans-identifying male in the women&#8217;s bathroom and expressing her discomfort. That video was likely <a href="https://www.iwf.org/2024/09/05/meta-considering-monumental-policy-change-to-ban-speech-promoting-womens-sports-and-spaces/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">taken</a> by Payton McNabb, a female high school athlete who was seriously <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/injured-high-school-volleyball-player-reacts-to-congresswoman-saying-trans-identifying-males-dont-hurt-anyone" target="_blank" rel="noopener">injured</a> in 2022 when a trans-identifying volleyball player spiked a ball at her head.
Both posts were reported for &#8220;Hate Speech and Bullying and Harassment&#8221; multiple times, but Meta left both posts up, deciding that neither violated Meta&#8217;s Community Standards. Users who reported the posts then appealed to the Oversight Board.
However, on Wednesday, the board ruled in favor of Meta&#8217;s original decision to leave both posts up. Rulings by the Oversight Board on specific posts are considered binding for the company.
&#8220;The Hate Speech policy does not include misgendering as a form of prohibited &#8216;attack,'&#8221; the Oversight Board noted when it announced it was looking into the videos.
The move is the latest victory for conservative users as Meta says it is working to dial back censorship, including on gender identity.
Earlier this year, Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/exclusive-pro-life-accounts-demand-meta-lift-suspensions-after-free-speech-promises" target="_blank" rel="noopener">announced</a> sweeping changes to his company’s content moderation policies, promising “more speech and fewer mistakes.”
“In recent years we’ve developed increasingly complex systems to manage content across our platforms, partly in response to societal and political pressure to moderate content. This approach has gone too far,” Meta said.
“We want to fix that and return to that fundamental commitment to free expression,” the company said.
The company also said it will be “getting rid of a number of restrictions on topics like immigration, gender identity and gender that are the subject of frequent political discourse and debate” and it will also recommend more political content if a user has indicated they are interested.
Meta has been fiercely criticized in recent years for <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/meta-doubles-down-after-zuckerberg-reveals-how-facebook-censored-hunter-biden-laptop-story" target="_blank" rel="noopener">censoring</a> political content such as the Hunter Biden laptop story, which broke just before the 2020 election.

Social Media And Company Logos

After Review, Facebook Says ‘Misgendering’ Doesn’t Violate Its Hate Speech Policy

Meta Rules Transgender Posts Do Not Violate Hate Speech Rules In Win For Conservatives, Daily Wire

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Meta&#8217;s Oversight Board expressed indignation at the social media giant for its January policy overhaul that axed fact-checking and eased restrictions on discussions about immigration and gender identity.
The independent oversight board railed against the company for implementing the changes &#8220;hastily&#8221; with supposedly no transparency about &#8220;what, if any, prior human rights due diligence&#8221; was performed.
Zuckerberg acknowledged that previous content moderation efforts had resulted in &#8220;too many mistakes and too much censorship.&#8221;
President Trump had frequently criticized Facebook during his first term, culminating in his platform suspension following the January 6, 2021, Capitol events — a ban eventually lifted as he launched his successful 2024 campaign.
Since President Trump’s election to a second term, the Meta CEO has been working to mend fences and roll back a decade of content policies that prohibited “hate speech” and supposed misinformation that conservatives have long criticized as biased.
As part of the January policy <a href="https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/boards-policy-regulation/metas-oversight-board-rebukes-company-over-policy-overhaul-2025-04-23/">overhaul</a>, Meta scrapped its U.S. fact-checking program, replacing third-party partnerships with a Community Notes tool similar to Elon Musk&#8217;s X, per Reuters.
In addition, Meta removed restrictions on “hate speech” towards LGBT individuals, and also announced it would stop proactively scanning platforms for &#8220;less severe policy violations,&#8221; instead focusing its automated systems only on serious content like terrorism and child exploitation.
Among its 17 recommendations, the board requested that Meta improve enforcement of its bullying policies while clarifying which hateful ideologies remain banned.
The board expressed concern about potential impacts in countries experiencing conflicts, urging Meta to &#8220;assess whether the changes could have uneven consequences globally.&#8221;
Despite the success of Community Notes on X, the Oversight Board still requested that Meta assess the new tool&#8217;s effectiveness and release reports every six months.
Meta said it would respond to the board&#8217;s 17 recommendations within 60 days.
The board did uphold Meta&#8217;s decisions to allow some controversial content, including posts discussing transgender people&#8217;s access to bathrooms, while requiring the removal of posts with racist slurs.
A Meta told Reuters the company welcomed decisions &#8220;that leave up or restore content in the interest of promoting free expression,&#8221; but did not address rulings calling for content removal.
Despite tensions, Meta has so far committed to funding the Oversight Board through 2027, allocating at least $35 million annually over the next three years, placed in an Irrevocable Trust designed to protect the board&#8217;s independence.
Oversight Board Co-Chair Paolo Carozza stated, &#8220;We have no reason to think that Meta is soured on the board or planning to make any large-scale structural changes in terms of its commitment with the board.&#8221;

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Meta Oversight Board Fumes As Facebook Ends Censorship Initiatives

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Meta, the parent company of Facebook, announced Friday that its fact-checking program in the United States would be &#8220;officially over&#8221; on Monday, when it will roll out the community notes feature across all platforms.
The news comes after Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced in January that the company would end fact-checking and move to restore free speech on Facebook, Instagram, and Threads. Starting Monday, fact-checkers will no longer be able to rate new content, and old fact-checks placed on content will no longer appear.
Instead of fact-checks, Meta will adopt an X-style community notes system where users can add context to posts, which are then rated by other users. Anyone will be able to sign up to be a contributor to community notes if they are over 18 and have had a verified account for over six months.
Joel Kaplan, Meta&#8217;s chief global affairs officer, announced the changes on Friday.
&#8220;By Monday afternoon, our fact-checking program in the US will be officially over. That means no new fact checks and no fact checkers. We announced in January we’d be winding down the program &amp; we haven’t applied penalties to fact-checked posts in the US since then. In place of fact checks, the first Community Notes will start appearing gradually across Facebook, Threads &amp; Instagram, with no penalties attached,&#8221; Kaplan posted on social media.
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By Monday afternoon, our fact-checking program in the US will be officially over. That means no new fact checks and no fact checkers. We announced in January we’d be winding down the program &amp; removing penalties. In place of fact checks, the first Community Notes will start…
&mdash; Joel Kaplan (@joel_kaplan) <a href="https://twitter.com/joel_kaplan/status/1908204701457236472?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 4, 2025</a></blockquote>
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The changes come after Meta was placed under congressional scrutiny for targeting conservative views on topics like the 2020 election, the COVID vaccine, and the Hunter Biden laptop story. Zuckerberg has pinned much of the blame for the censorship on former President Joe Biden, saying Meta was pressured to target conservative content.
Meta started testing out its community notes feature last month, allowing some 200,000 potential contributors to sign up.
&#8220;Meta won’t decide what gets rated or written – contributors from our community will. And to safeguard against bias, notes won’t be published unless contributors with a range of viewpoints broadly agree on them,&#8221; the company said. &#8220;This isn’t majority rules. No matter how many contributors agree on a note, it won’t be published unless people who normally disagree decide that it provides helpful context.&#8221;
In January, Zuckerberg <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/zuckerberg-says-meta-restoring-free-speech-will-get-rid-of-fact-checkers" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a> that the move was part of Meta&#8217;s goal of restoring free speech on its platforms.
“We’re going to get back to our roots and focus on reducing mistakes, simplifying our policies and restoring free expression on our platforms,” Zuckerberg said. “We’re going to get rid of fact-checkers and replace them with Community Notes similar to X, starting in the United States.”
Zuckerberg said restrictions on discussions on topics like immigration and gender were “out of touch with mainstream discourse.”
“What started as a movement to be more inclusive has increasingly been used to shut down opinions and shut out people with different ideas,” he said.
In that same announcement, Zuckerberg said that Meta would work with the incoming Trump administration to fight censorship abroad.
“We’re going to work with President Trump to push back on governments around the world that are going after American companies and pushing to censor more,” he said. “The U.S. has the strongest constitutional protections for free expression in the world.”

US-TECHNOLOGY-INTERNET-CHILD-EXPLOITATION

Facebook To Shut Down Fact-Checking Program On Monday: ‘Officially Over’

Fact Check

Taking a page out of X’s book, Meta <a href="https://about.fb.com/news/2025/03/testing-begins-community-notes-facebook-instagram-threads/">announced</a> on Thursday that it would start testing Community Notes on Facebook, Instagram, and Threads in the United States on March 18.
Meta offered implied criticism of “third-party” fact checkers, on whom it had heretofore relied, writing, “We expect Community Notes to be less biased than the third party fact checking program it replaces because it allows more people with more perspectives to add context to posts.”
Meta <a href="https://about.fb.com/news/2025/01/meta-more-speech-fewer-mistakes/">announced</a> in January it would move to a community notes-based approach, stating, “Starting in the US, we are ending our third party fact-checking program and moving to a Community Notes model. We will allow more speech by lifting restrictions on some topics that are part of mainstream discourse and focusing our enforcement on illegal and high-severity violations. We will take a more personalized approach to political content, so that people who want to see more of it in their feeds can.”
“Notes won’t initially appear on content,” Meta warned. “We will start by gradually and randomly admitting people off of the waitlist, and will take time to test the writing and rating system before any notes are published publicly.”
Meta acknowledged its debt to X, explaining, “Many of you will be familiar with X’s Community Notes system, in which users add context to posts. That’s the broad approach we are adopting. &#8230; Initially we will use X’s open source algorithm as the basis of our rating system. This will allow us to build on what X has created and improve it for our own platforms over time.”
Meta stated it would guard against bias in the notes by ensuring the notes would not be published unless “contributors with a range of viewpoints broadly agree on them. This isn’t majority rules. No matter how many contributors agree on a note, it won’t be published unless people who normally disagree decide that it provides helpful context.”
The notes are limited to 500 characters and require a link to support them. Contributors must be over 18 with an “account that’s more than 6 months old and in good standing, and either have a verified phone number or be enrolled in two-factor authentication.”

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Meta Follows X, Will Start Testing Community Notes On Facebook And Instagram Next Week

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Abdulbaqi Saeed Abdo knows the real danger of online censorship.
The husband and father of five <a href="https://morningstarnews.org/2025/02/two-christians-in-egypt-released-after-three-years-in-jail/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">walked out</a> of an Egyptian jail recently after three years of detention. The reason for his punishment? Authorities had taken a dislike to his participation in a private Facebook group.
Abdo was a Christian convert from Islam, and liked to discuss theology with other likeminded friends online. Expressing his faith online cost him his freedom – and placed him in immensely difficult conditions, as he battled failing health from a Cairo cell.
The comparison to America’s recent “vibe shift” toward freedom could not be starker. Zuckerberg’s apparent “U-Turn” on free speech last month brought much jubilation to conservative commentators, who had voiced concern for years about the censorship of lawful content on Meta. “It’s time to get back to our roots on free expression,” said the social media mogul, after scrapping his notorious “third party fact checking program” in favor of a “community notes” approach to verifying information, modeled after Elon Musk’s X.
Zuckerberg’s fresh perspective is a clear leap forward in the march against censorship. But as the experience of Abdo in Egypt warns, it isn’t only social media companies who can pose a threat to our right to speak. As free as social media platforms ought to be, governments can nevertheless seize power to shut down speech they don’t like, wherever it may appear.
Few are shocked to learn of unjust crackdowns against “blasphemy” in the Muslim world, in which Abdulbaqi is based. But the problem of state censorship is thriving in the West too. Last week, it was reported that British deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner is set to create a “council on Islamophobia” amidst turmoil on the streets of England – a move which could severely limit free speech and criticism of religious views. The announcement came days after a man was arrested in Manchester for <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/greater-manchester-islamic-manchester-arena-greater-manchester-police-twitter-b2691184.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">burning</a> a Koran, and later publicly named by police, despite the risk of threats posed to his life. Recently, in another incident, a Bristol preacher was similarly <a href="https://www.gbnews.com/news/two-tier-policing-christian-pastor-arrested-bristol-preaching-islam-adf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">arrested</a> for daring to compare Islam and Christianity in public, in answer to a question. And in Wakefield, Police recorded a “hate incident” against a 14-year-old autistic boy who <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11821157/14-year-old-autistic-boys-naive-prank-scuffed-copy-Koran.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">scuffed</a> a Koran at school. Following death threats, the child was forced into hiding, but police refused to prosecute his tormentors for fear of “escalating” the situation. Instead, his white British mother donned a hijab and begged for forgiveness at the local mosque. 
Granted, most leaders in the West do not voice support for outright blasphemy laws of the kind we see across the Middle East and North Africa. But many instead welcome these undemocratic initiatives via more cleverly disguised “hate speech laws.”
Examples abound.
Take Finland. A member of parliament, Päivi Räsänen, will soon be heading to <a href="https://adfinternational.org/cases/paivi" target="_blank" rel="noopener">criminal trial</a> at the Supreme Court because of a Bible-verse tweet she posted in 2019. Her tweet questioned her church’s sponsorship of a “pride” event – making her a heretic of the state religion of “woke”. It wasn’t a social media platform that censored her Christian view – but the state authorities.
Meanwhile in Mexico, a court <a href="https://adfinternational.org/cases/gabriel-quadri-mexico" target="_blank" rel="noopener">convicted</a> a politician and former presidential candidate, Gabriel Quadri, of “gender based political violence” &#8211; all because he spoke out on “X” about trans-identifying males taking spaces in Congress designated for females. As part of his punishment, he was made to attend a re-education course, and forced to tweet an apology for his words every day, twice a day, for fifteen days.
And in Australia, a <a href="https://adfinternational.org/cases/billboard-chris-australia" target="_blank" rel="noopener">legal showdown</a> in March will see “X” and internet sensation “Billboard Chris” take on the Australian “e-Safety Commissioner,” who censored a tweet upholding the truth on protecting kids from harmful gender ideology.
Freedom of expression is a universal human right. But commitments to free speech from “X” and Meta are only as good as the countries in which they operate – as Abdulbaqi Saeed Abdo knows only too well.
Yet while we celebrate his release from an Egyptian prison this week, the West can hardly lecture Egypt on ending archaic blasphemy laws when we’re intent on introducing our own.
* * *
Paul Coleman is the executive director of ADF International and author of “Censored: How European Hate Speech Laws are Threatening Freedom of Speech.”
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

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The Gatekeepers Of Digital Discourse: Governments And The Future Of Online Speech

Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF)

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Earlier on Wednesday, President <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/donald-trump" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Donald Trump</a> signed an agreement requiring Meta Platforms to pay $25 million to settle a lawsuit he brought after his social media accounts were suspended in 2021.
The settlement resolves a 4-year-long court battle over free speech and social media censorship, with Meta suspending Trump following his remarks on the January 6 Capitol riot.
According to a report by The Wall Street Journal, settlement negotiations <a href="https://www.wsj.com/us-news/law/trump-signs-agreement-calling-for-meta-to-pay-25-million-to-settle-suit-6f734c8c" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reportedly</a> became more serious after Mark Zuckerberg dined with Trump at Mar-a-Lago in November following Trump’s election victory.
Of the settlement, $22 million will go toward the president’s library, with the remainder designated for legal fees and other plaintiffs.
This settlement follows efforts by tech companies previously hostile to Trump to get into his good graces, with Amazon Chairman Jeff Bezos and Apple CEO Tim Cook, in addition to Zuckerberg, each <a href="https://www.commoncause.org/articles/big-tech-is-donating-millions-to-trumps-inauguration/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">donating</a> $1 million respectively, to the inauguration.
Alongside Meta, Trump sued other major platforms, including Twitter and YouTube, over his suspensions, arguing that the companies had wrongfully violated his right to share political speech.
A federal judge ultimately dismissed the Twitter action in 2022, concluding that the First Amendment applies to government entities rather than private corporations, although Trump’s legal team lodged an appeal that has yet to be resolved. The YouTube suit was put on an administrative pause in 2023, with the possibility of being reopened at a later date.
One of Trump’s lawyers acknowledged that they saw an opening for possible settlements, noting that corporate defendants appeared willing to mend fences with the new administration.
Although Trump’s Facebook and Instagram access was eventually restored, his attorneys argued that an atmosphere of uncertainty continued for him online.
Zuckerberg, for his part, had previously explained that Meta saw security concerns in allowing continued engagement by high-profile figures who contested election results.
Reflecting on the 2021 suspensions, he said the potential risks posed amid that tumultuous period were “simply too great.”
While the lawsuit with Meta has now been settled, the broader debate over what boundaries, if any, private businesses can set for political speech shows few signs of fading.

The Inauguration Of Donald J. Trump As The 47th President

Trump, Meta Settle Lawsuit Over Social Media Ban for $25 Million

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<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/meta" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Meta</a> has restored several pro-life Facebook accounts just days after attorneys sent a letter demanding the social media giant do so in the wake of Meta&#8217;s recent promise to support free speech.
The Facebook and Instagram accounts for pro-life news site <a href="https://www.lifenews.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">LifeNews.com</a>, LifeNews founder Steven Ertelt, and pro-life mom Abby Covington were restored this week after being suspended for months, according to a press release provided exclusively to The Daily Wire.
The move came just a week after their legal team at Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/exclusive-pro-life-accounts-demand-meta-lift-suspensions-after-free-speech-promises">sent a letter</a> to Meta calling on the platform to reverse its decision to suspend the accounts.
“Restoring pro-life speech to one of the world’s largest platforms is a major step in the right direction,” Phil Sechler, senior counsel at ADF, said in a statement.
“We’re grateful to see Steven Ertelt, Abby Covington, and LifeNews back on Meta platforms, where they will continue to use their voice to spread family-friendly and life-affirming messages. There’s no doubt that Mark Zuckerberg and Meta have plenty of work ahead to build back trust with the public, but correcting these past mistakes will go a long way to do just that,” Sechler said.
In May, Ertelt found his Facebook account had been permanently disabled after he posted a video showing a doctor performing a C-section. During the procedure, the unborn child can be seen grabbing the doctor’s finger.
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“An unborn baby can’t be just a clump of cells when he or she is grabbing the doctor’s hand,” read the video’s caption.
Facebook permanently disabled Ertelt’s account and informed him the post failed to follow its Community Standards on “child sexual exploitation,” his attorneys said.
Because LifeNews used Ertelt’s Facebook account to create the LifeNews Instagram account, the group’s Instagram account is effectively permanently suspended as well.
“These account suspensions have caused serious harm to Mr. Ertelt and LifeNews,” the ADF attorneys wrote in their letter to Meta.
In a statement Friday, Ertelt expressed hope that Facebook has turned over a new leaf on free speech.
“Facebook should not have suspended our accounts for posting a pro-life medical video,” Ertelt said. “And it should not have taken 8 months and a letter from attorneys for Facebook and Instagram to finally restore access to our accounts. But this is an example of the kind of censorship and discrimination pro-life conservatives have come to expect from Facebook over the years. With its recent changes, we hope Facebook will truly allow free speech on its platforms.&#8221;
Covington, the Christian pro-life mother of three, had her Facebook account permanently suspended after she posted about her family’s adoption journey. In her post, she described her family’s Christian faith and encouraged expecting mothers to reach out if they were thinking about putting their baby up for adoption.
“We believe children are a gift from the Lord,” she wrote. “God has given us the desire to support an expecting mother who will choose life for her baby through the gift of adoption! We love our children, and our prayer is to expand our family while providing a safe &amp; loving home.”
Covington received a barrage of hateful messages after her post was shared in a private group, prompting her to delete it. One user wrote, “I’m adopted and I’d s*** in your mouth out of spite while you were asleep if I’d been raised that way.”
Facebook then informed her that her account did not follow its Community Standards on “human exploitation,” her attorneys said. The platform disabled her Instagram account, as well as all of her Facebook accounts, including the one for her jewelry, skincare, and makeup business.
“The animus-filled messages that Mrs. Covington received from other Facebook users were understandably distressing,” the ADF attorneys wrote in their letter to Meta. “But what is most distressing to her is Facebook’s decision to permanently disable all six of her accounts, causing her significant financial and personal harm.”
The ADF attorneys accused Meta of violating its free speech standards, breaching its own terms of service, and failing to uphold its promises. They had requested the company respond to their request to reinstate the pro-life accounts by January 22.
“These situations provide a litmus test for whether Meta will live up to its public announcement or continue to censor and restrict the marketplace of ideas,” the legal team wrote.
Last week, Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg released a video <a href="https://about.fb.com/news/2025/01/meta-more-speech-fewer-mistakes/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">announcing</a> sweeping changes to his company’s content moderation policies, promising “more speech and fewer mistakes.”
“In recent years we’ve developed increasingly complex systems to manage content across our platforms, partly in response to societal and political pressure to moderate content. This approach has gone too far,” Meta said.
“We want to fix that and return to that fundamental commitment to free expression,” the company said.
Meta said it will end its third-party fact-checking program and move to a Community Notes model similar to what X, formerly Twitter, does. The company also said it will be “getting rid of a number of restrictions on topics like immigration, gender identity and gender that are the subject of frequent political discourse and debate,” and it will also recommend more political content if a user has indicated they are interested.
Meta has been fiercely criticized in recent years for <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/meta-doubles-down-after-zuckerberg-reveals-how-facebook-censored-hunter-biden-laptop-story" target="_blank" rel="noopener">censoring</a> political content such as the Hunter Biden laptop story, which broke just before the 2020 election.

Facebook Reports First Ever Decrease In Daily Active Users

EXCLUSIVE: Meta Restores Pro-Life Accounts Days After Legal Demand

Abortion

Pro-Life Movement

Social Issues

President Donald Trump’s inauguration is just around the corner. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg donated $1 million to the inauguration fund. Jeff Bezos and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman did the same. Zuckerberg, however, has gone further, actually announcing <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/meta-axes-dei-programs-in-the-lead-up-to-trumps-inauguration" target="_blank" rel="noopener">real policy change</a> that the incoming Trump administration will approve of.
Many conservatives are dismissive of Zuckerberg’s announcement that Meta will no longer censor political speech, mute conversations about hot-button social issues, and discontinue its egregious “fact-checking” program. They ought not to be. I believe the change is real and the motivation genuine.
Meta’s censorship sins run very, very deep.
As early as 2015, Meta (then Facebook) was putting its thumb on the scale in favor of Left-wing politicians. It interfered in the 2016 election by suppressing stories critical of Hillary Clinton. In 2018, the company was actively working to prevent Republican candidates from communicating with their constituents. In 2020, it was secretly colluding with the Justice Department to keep the American people from learning about the Hunter Biden laptop. That action alone may have cost Donald Trump his reelection.
On issue after issue, Facebook has deliberately attempted to suppress free speech. Conservatives questioning COVID and its origins have found themselves censored, even banned from the platform. Ditto for anyone questioning climate change. Ditto for anyone questioning child mutilation.
<ul>
<li>Condemn illegal immigration — censored.</li>
<li>Promote the pro-life cause — censored.</li>
<li>State that Biden was putting America into a recession — censored.</li>
<li>Object to federally-funded crack pipes — censored.</li>
<li>Criticize the “Zuckerbucks” scheme to hijack local elections — adios.</li>
</ul>
The list is seemingly endless. At <a href="https://www.mrc.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">the MRC</a> we have tabulated 1,725 times Meta has censored conservatives. Tens of thousands of conservatives have been banned — and that includes the president of the United States.
Some have suggested that the president-elect put the fear of the Lord into Zuckerberg <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/trump-zuckerberg-have-dinner-together-at-mar-a-lago" target="_blank" rel="noopener">when they met</a> at Mar-a-Lago recently, and perhaps that’s true. Nevertheless, it would be a mistake to simply conclude that Meta’s “about-face” this week was motivated merely out of fear of reprisals.
Consider: Zuckerberg could have resolved the problem by just putting an end to it. No video, no public humiliation. Just a four word memo to his staff: “You censor, you’re out.” It was as simple as not giving cause for future complaints.
But that’s not what he did. He released a video he knew would become front page news nationwide. In it, he unequivocally admitted conservatives had been right all along; unequivocally acknowledged Meta had violated the public trust by suppressing free speech; and unequivocally committed to a new policy championing the First Amendment.
He also fired his entire so-called “fact-checking” operation. These were the hardened leftists responsible for the bulk of that fascistic censorship. They were the fuel behind the killing machine of any user’s account that posted stories about election interference, Joe Biden’s mental acuity, or the origins of the Wuhan virus.
But then he added something else. He announced he is moving the remainder of the content team out of Palo Alto, which he once described to me as the “heart of leftism in America,” and into the heart of freedom — Texas.
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Conservatives should consider that if there were anything like a Christmas card list in Palo Alto, his name has been scratched off. In the eyes of Silicon Valley, Zuckerberg is a traitor.
Let’s be clear: Zuckerberg is a leftist, of the hard Left variety. So why put out that video? Because one can be on the far-Left of the political spectrum and still be a champion of free speech. Ironically, it has historically been this community, driven by libertine impulses, that most embraced free speech.
I have met and corresponded with Zuckerberg several times. I believe he’s in this camp. I also believe that within the Meta universe, there will be plenty of employees who will try to undermine him, just as Twitter employees tried with Elon Musk. Censorship will continue; leftists who understand the power of social media are not about to relinquish it. But maybe, just maybe, it will be the exception to the rule. Maybe, just maybe, the rules have changed.
Time will tell. Trust, but verify.
But let the conversation continue. If you thought Meta was bad, it has been angelic compared to Google. That company is out of control with its efforts to undermine democracy and Congressional hearings are in order to investigate their activities. TikTok is a tool of the Chinese government, the greatest threat to the United States, and has no business being in business in our country.
There are many other ventures on the rise in the emerging AI world that will certainly threaten conservatives’ ability to communicate in the public square. All must be confronted.
But for the moment, let’s consider that maybe, just maybe, Mark Zuckerberg has done something good.
* * *
L. Brent Bozell III is the founder and president of the Media Research Center and founder of the Free Speech Alliance.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

Social Media App Photo Illustration

Why Facebook’s About-Face Is Turning Heads

Leftists

Media Research Center

Silicon Valley

Last week the news broke that Meta — the company that owns Facebook, Instagram, and half the internet — claims it will be pulling back drastically from its censorship policies. Free speech will reign again on Facebook, supposedly. The CEO of Meta, Mark Zuckerberg, appeared on Joe Rogan a couple of days ago to elaborate on this decision. Much of what he says in the conversation — along with the entire conversation itself — would have been unthinkable four or five years ago. But times are rapidly changing.
Specifically, in the interview, Zuckerberg affirmed that there&#8217;s nothing wrong with a masculine culture in a workplace — and that, in fact, a lot of companies would benefit from it. Imagine that. Watch:
<iframe loading="lazy" title="001 Zuck" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/aL_ODZpmMCM?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
&nbsp;
Eight years ago, these are the kinds of ideas that would&#8217;ve — and if you recall the case of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/fired-google-engineer-james-damore-dropped-his-lawsuit-against-company" target="_blank" rel="noopener">James Damore</a> — did get rank-and-file employees fired at Google. And now the head of a major Big Tech company is saying it.
Of course, the obvious response to this interview is that Zuckerberg doesn&#8217;t actually believe any of this. He&#8217;s just saying it because Trump won the election, and he wants to cozy up with power. And that&#8217;s almost certainly true. But it doesn&#8217;t fully capture what&#8217;s going on — which is that there&#8217;s also been a major shift in American culture this time around. After all, Trump won the election back in 2016, too. And Zuckerberg didn&#8217;t say anything like this. Instead his companies reacted by entrenching themselves even deeper on the Left. Now the exact opposite is happening.
In the interview, Zuckerberg suggested that some of Facebook&#8217;s censorship was the result of pressure by the Biden administration, although he claims to have resisted some of it. Watch:
<iframe loading="lazy" title="002 Biden censorship" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/0kEGe4pRgTY?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
&nbsp;
Of course, it wasn&#8217;t just &#8220;vaccine side effects&#8221; that the Biden administration wanted Facebook to censor. They also wanted Facebook to censor the Hunter Biden laptop story, for obvious reasons. It was a damning account of the Biden family&#8217;s corruption, and no one could really dispute its accuracy because it came directly from Hunter Biden&#8217;s laptop. And Facebook went along with that, too, on the ridiculous theory that the laptop was really some secret scheme by Russian intelligence.
It goes without saying that Facebook could have gone public with these concerns at any time in the last several years. They didn&#8217;t need to wait until Trump won a second term. So, no, we shouldn&#8217;t &#8220;trust&#8221; Mark Zuckerberg, now that he&#8217;s made a calculation that telling the truth is in his best interests. He had a chance to do the right thing when it would have required some measure of courage to do so. Although not that much, considering he was and is a multi-billionaire. That provides you a lot of cover that most of us don’t have. But Zuckerberg waited until now. 
There’s a lot of this going around right now. People who are seeing the light and coming out against wokeness, now that wokeness is a punch line and has no political power and little Cultural power. I welcome these people to Team Sanity. But I don’t trust them, and I certainly won’t congratulate them.
<h3><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/mws-ep-1513-member-exclusive" target="_blank" rel="noopener">WATCH: The Matt Walsh Show</a></h3>
At the same time, again, Zuckerberg&#8217;s shift is a reflection of a broader change in the culture. And it&#8217;s a shift that&#8217;s quite dramatic in some respects. Here&#8217;s how the New York Times is <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/10/technology/meta-mark-zuckerberg-trump.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reporting</a> on some of the changes at Meta, for example: 
<blockquote>The company removed the transgender and nonbinary &#8216;themes&#8217; on its Messenger chat app. &#8230; That same day at Meta’s offices in Silicon Valley, Texas and New York, facilities managers were instructed to remove tampons from men’s bathrooms, which the company had provided for nonbinary and transgender employees who use the men’s room and who may have required sanitary pads, two employees said.</blockquote>
Yes, tampons have been removed from the men&#8217;s bathrooms at Meta. Presumably the tampons have also been removed from the virtual bathrooms in the Metaverse too, although I don&#8217;t have a &#8220;Meta Quest&#8221; VR headset, so I can&#8217;t verify that at the moment. This is a sudden change that happened virtually overnight, after years of having tampons in the men&#8217;s bathroom. The CEO decides one day to end it. And it ends.
Why did the men’s bathrooms ever have tampons to begin with? Why did he ever think that was a good idea? Did Zuckerberg believe that men could have periods and then see the light after reading a biology textbook? I don’t think so. He knew it was absurd the whole time.
And guess what? There have been no riots at Meta over this change. There have been no massive protests or mass resignations. The Metaverse hasn&#8217;t collapsed. That&#8217;s because everyone at Meta — including the supposedly &#8220;trans&#8221; employees — know that reality is not subjective. They know that men do not need tampons. And now that an adult has told them the truth, they&#8217;re accepting it because they have no other choice.
That&#8217;s all it really takes for a return to sanity. And it&#8217;s happening more and more often.
To give another example — recently a federal court in Kentucky handed the Biden administration a major defeat in a Title IX case. In case you&#8217;re not familiar with Title IX, it&#8217;s a law that prevents sex discrimination in educational programs, including sports, that receive any kind of federal assistance. The Biden administration unilaterally tried to re-interpret Title IX so that it prevents discrimination on the basis of so-called &#8220;gender identity.&#8221; Their rule would have required teachers to use students&#8217; preferred pronouns, among other demands.
From a legal perspective, the Biden administration and trans activists thought they had a winning case. And that&#8217;s because an earlier Supreme Court ruling had held, by a 6-3 vote, that a different provision of civil rights law — Title VII — prohibited discrimination on the basis of so-called &#8220;gender identity&#8221; in the workplace. Gorsuch and Roberts sided with the Leftist judges to come up with that ruling.
But last week, a federal judge in Kentucky held that the same logic doesn&#8217;t apply to Title IX, because Title IX is explicitly focused on sex discrimination — and no other form of discrimination. <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/25483131-order-in-title-ix-case/?q=eviscerates&amp;mode=document#document/p7" target="_blank" rel="noopener">This</a> is from the judge&#8217;s ruling: &#8220;The entire point of Title 9 is to prevent discrimination based on sex. Throwing gender identity into the mix eviscerates the statute and renders it largely meaningless.&#8221;
This ruling will obviously be appealed, and work its way up the courts. But as it stands, it could lay the groundwork for a new Supreme Court ruling — one that rejects any attempt to conflate &#8220;sex&#8221; and &#8220;gender&#8221; within the meaning of the law.
<h3><a href="https://www.amiracist.com/?_gl=1*jtghwp*_gcl_au*ODQ1NjYzNTg2LjE3Mjg5MDk3OTE.*_ga*MTc2NzM0NDQ2NS4xNzI4OTA5Nzkx*_ga_CZKR9ZYKJP*MTczMDEyMDgwOS40OS4xLjE3MzAxMjA4MzkuMzAuMC4w" target="_blank" rel="noopener">MATT WALSH&#8217;S &#8216;AM I RACIST?&#8217; NOW STREAMING ON DAILYWIRE+</a></h3>
A ruling like that would&#8217;ve been hard to imagine a few years ago. But it&#8217;s not hard to imagine anymore. That&#8217;s because, even in places like California — some of the most Left-wing places in the country — there are clear signs that people are tired of this insanity. Consider the eruption of anger over California&#8217;s DEI policies and general incompetence in the wake of these historic fires, which still aren&#8217;t under control.
The corporate press is trying to run the same familiar narrative, where they blame racism and climate change. For example, <a href="https://apnews.com/article/california-wildfire-pacific-palisades-pasadena-altadena-inequality-63ea76d186740359f7f5dd188896354f" target="_blank" rel="noopener">here&#8217;s the AP</a>: 
<blockquote>The California wildfires could be leaving deeper inequality in their wake. .. The fires also burned through a remarkable haven for generations of Black families avoiding discriminatory housing practices elsewhere. They have been communities of racial and economic diversity, where many people own their own homes.</blockquote>
The reaction to this article online has been, as you might expect, universal mockery and derision. People aren&#8217;t persuaded by this anymore. Well, people never were persuaded by it. The difference is that now nobody pretends to be. No one talks like this, unless they&#8217;re a journalist for an outlet like the AP. The rest of us are sharing clips like this one, featuring the chief of the Los Angeles Department of Water &amp; Power. Watch:
<iframe loading="lazy" title="003 LA" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/4TznyI2d60Q?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
&nbsp;
She says: &#8220;The #1 thing that attracted me to this role&#8230; It’s important for me that everything we do is with an equity lens and social justice.&#8221;
It&#8217;s reminiscent of the aftermath of the Maui fires, when a top official <a href="https://nypost.com/2023/08/19/hawaii-official-worried-about-equity-over-water/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">talked</a> about how access to water should involve &#8220;conversations about equity.&#8221; These are the kinds of clips that have quickly surfaced in the wake of the California fires. And they&#8217;re surfacing because people are tired of DEI hires running their cities into the ground. People are realizing that lives are at stake now.
That&#8217;s especially obvious after the discovery that a key reservoir was <a href="https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2025-01-10/as-flames-raged-in-palisades-a-key-reservoir-nearby-was-offline" target="_blank" rel="noopener">empty</a> in the Pacific Palisades when the fires began. From the <a href="https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2025-01-10/as-flames-raged-in-palisades-a-key-reservoir-nearby-was-offline" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Los Angeles Times</a>: 
<blockquote>Officials said that the [Reservoir] had been closed since about February for repairs to its cover, leaving a 117-million-gallon water storage complex empty in the heart of the Palisades for nearly a year.</blockquote>
Keep in mind, that&#8217;s the L.A. Times with that exclusive reporting. That&#8217;s the same paper that called Larry Elder &#8220;the black face of white supremacy&#8221; not too long ago. Then (like Jeff Bezos), the Times&#8217; owner withheld the paper&#8217;s endorsement of Kamala Harris, so they&#8217;d focus more on the news. Now they&#8217;re exposing genuine misconduct and incompetence, no matter how embarrassing and damaging it may be for California&#8217;s Democrats.
You won&#8217;t find a clearer sign that wokeness — meaning the suspension of reality to appease the preferred demographic groups of the Democratic Party — is coming to an end. It may be coming to an end in part because of self-interested political actors like Mark Zuckerberg. But it&#8217;s ending, one way or another, because people are tired of it. When Donald Trump won in 2016, that wasn&#8217;t the case. But if there&#8217;s one overriding reason for optimism for Trump&#8217;s second term, it&#8217;s that this time around, no one — not even Silicon Valley mega-corporations like Meta — is pretending to take this nonsense seriously anymore.
* * *
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Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg Interview On The Circuit

Wokeness Is Dying

Big Tech

Diversity Equity and Inclusion (DEI)

Joe Rogan

Los Angeles

Woke Culture

<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/prince-harry">Prince Harry</a> issued a statement making it clear he is not happy that <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/meta">Meta</a> has decided to no longer fact-check people when they say things that the member of the royal family finds upsetting.
In a <a href="https://sussex.com/fact-checking-meta/">lengthy statement</a> on Monday — from the Office of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, The Duke and Duchess of Sussex — the royal said the company’s policy to roll back &#8220;hate speech&#8221; restrictions on the social media platform “should deeply concern us all,” calling on Meta to reverse course.
Last week, Meta CEO <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/mark-zuckerberg">Mark Zuckerberg</a> announced the company would no longer work with independent fact-checkers, end restrictions on topics like gender and immigration, and scale back filters that censored people for often innocuous posts. 
“It doesn’t matter whether your views are left, right or somewhere in between—the latest news from Meta about changes to their policies directly undermines free speech,” Prince Harry wrote. “Contrary to the company’s talking points, allowing more abuse and normalizing hate speech serves to silence speech and expression, not foster it.”
“Online spaces must be designed with public safety and well-being at their core, resilient against political pressures and lapses in corporate leadership,” he added. “This latest move from Meta is an example of a social media company—fully aware of their power to shape public discourse—disregarding any responsibility to ensure that power is not abused and instead allowing either ego or profit, likely both, to guide decisions that affect billions.&#8221;
“Meta’s changes to its ‘Hateful Content Policies’ do not protect free expression but instead foster an environment where abuse and hate speech silence and threaten the voices of whole communities who make up a healthy democracy,” the royal continued. “We urge Meta to reconsider and reinstate policies to protect all users. We also call on leaders across industries to uphold their commitments to integrity and public safety in online spaces, and we applaud leaders who refuse to kowtow to bullying.”
At one point, the Duke also focused his ire on the decision by <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/meta-axes-dei-programs-in-the-lead-up-to-trumps-inauguration">Meta to axe</a> its diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs, claiming that it was undermining “protections for marginalized communities&#8221; and putting “everyone in harm’s way and contributing to a global mental health crisis.”
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Shortly after the statement was released, social media users cracked jokes about Prince Harry being upset.
“Mark Zuckerberg has upset the Markles,” <a href="https://x.com/HollyBriden/status/1878835786700955820">one person joked</a>. “People on Meta are now free to call Meghan a ‘gold-digging fame-whore’ or Harry a ‘half-blood prince’ and there’s nothing they can do about it. This is tragic. #SaveTheMarkles.”
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Mark Zuckerberg has upset the Markles. 
People on Meta are now free to call Meghan a “gold-digging fame-whore” or Harry a “half-blood prince” and there’s nothing they can do about it. 
This is tragic. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/SaveTheMarkles?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#SaveTheMarkles</a> <a href="https://t.co/3vKiDJ2OT3">https://t.co/3vKiDJ2OT3</a>
&mdash; 🥜🫃🏼💉🇺🇦🥥Hollaria Briden, Esq. (@HollyBriden) <a href="https://twitter.com/HollyBriden/status/1878835786700955820?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 13, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
While <a href="https://x.com/InsightfulWatch/status/1878757722860245416">another added</a>, “They have blamed racism, the Royal Family, the UK media, the people of the UK and now they are saying it’s haters. It’s time Harry noticed that people across the world do not like his and his wife’s behavior and treatment of others. They are to blame.”
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/meghan-markle-lifestyle-series-coming-to-netflix-and-people-have-thoughts" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Meghan Markle Lifestyle Series Coming To Netflix — And People Have Thoughts</a>

Prince Harry

Prince Harry’s Mad Meta Is No Longer Fact-Checking People When They Say Upsetting Things

Prince Harry's Mad Meta Is No Longer Fact-Checking People When They Say Upsetting Things

Celebrities

Entertainment

First Amendenet

Meghan Markle

Royal Family

Meta CEO <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/mark-zuckerberg" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Mark Zuckerberg</a> revealed during a Friday interview with Joe Rogan that his company is scrapping diversity, equity, and inclusion programs and embracing &#8220;masculine energy&#8221; in corporate culture.
&#8220;A lot of the corporate world is pretty culturally neutered,&#8221; Zuckerberg told Rogan. &#8220;The kind of masculine energy I think is good, and obviously society has plenty of that, but I think corporate culture was really trying to get away from it.&#8221;
He acknowledged that while it&#8217;s important for companies to support women, the notion that &#8220;masculinity is bad&#8221; has become prevalent, which he believes is not the right approach. &#8220;These things can always go a little far,&#8221; he added.
“I think having a culture that celebrates the aggression a bit more has its own merits that are really positive,&#8221; said Zuckerberg, suggesting that companies should strive to strike a balance between both perspectives. 
 
“It’s one thing to say we want to be welcoming and make a good environment for everyone, and I think it’s another to basically say that ‘masculinity is bad,'&#8221; he said. “And I just think we kind of swung culturally to that part of the spectrum. … It’s like, no. Both of these things are good.”
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Zuckerberg’s perspective is reflected in recently announced changes to Meta&#8217;s content moderation policies. According to The New York Times, Meta has also <a href="https://www.foxbusiness.com/media/meta-orders-removal-tampons-mens-rooms-amid-zuckerberg-post-election-shakeup-report" target="_blank" rel="noopener">ordered</a> the removal of tampons in the men&#8217;s restrooms in multiple facilities, &#8220;which the company had provided for nonbinary and transgender employees who use the men’s room&#8230;&#8221;
Additionally, Meta dropped major diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives on Friday, with an internal memo indicating that the term &#8220;DEI&#8221; had become &#8220;charged&#8221; because it was &#8220;understood by some as a practice that suggests preferential treatment of some groups over others.&#8221; The memo&#8217;s release followed Meta&#8217;s announcement that it was abandoning its fact-checking program, citing concerns that fact-checkers were &#8220;too politically biased.&#8221;
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Zuckerberg&#8217;s interview with Rogan comes shortly after he met with President-elect Donald Trump at his Florida estate. Despite past tensions, including Trump&#8217;s previous criticisms of Zuckerberg and threats of legal action, the Meta CEO expressed optimism about the incoming administration. &#8220;I think he just wants America to win,&#8221; Zuckerberg said of Trump.
Zuckerberg expressed that he now feels a &#8220;much greater command&#8221; over Meta&#8217;s policies and dismissed the idea that the recent changes are &#8220;purely political&#8221; due to their timing near the recent elections. He emphasized that the adjustments are part of a long-term strategy to address concerns over bias and content moderation.

Key Speakers At The Acquired Live Podcast Event

Facebook Culture Shift: Zuckerberg Backs ‘Masculine Energy,’ Drops DEI Efforts

Politics

Several pro-life Facebook users are demanding their accounts be restored after Meta promised this week to support free speech on its platform.
In a letter obtained exclusively by The Daily Wire, the legal counsel for <a href="https://www.lifenews.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener">LifeNews</a> and its founder Steven Ertelt, as well as pro-life mother Abby Covington, requested Meta &#8220;immediately&#8221; restore their disabled accounts.
&#8220;If Meta is truly committed to the free-speech principles that it recently announced, it will act swiftly to reinstate Mr. Ertelt’s, LifeNews’s, and Mrs. Covington’s accounts,&#8221; reads the letter from their legal team at Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF).
In May, Ertelt found his Facebook account had been permanently disabled after he posted a video showing a doctor performing a C-section. During the procedure, the unborn child can be seen grabbing the doctor&#8217;s finger.
“An unborn baby can’t be just a clump of cells when he or she is grabbing the doctor’s hand,” read the video&#8217;s caption.
Facebook permanently disabled Ertelt&#8217;s account and informed him the post failed to follow its Community Standards on &#8220;child sexual exploitation,&#8221; his attorneys said.
Because LifeNews used Ertelt’s Facebook account to create the LifeNews Instagram account, the group&#8217;s Instagram account is effectively permanently suspended as well.
&#8220;These account suspensions have caused serious harm to Mr. Ertelt and LifeNews,&#8221; the ADF attorneys wrote in their letter to Meta.
Covington, the Christian pro-life mother of three, had her Facebook account permanently suspended after she posted about her family&#8217;s adoption journey. In her post, she described her family&#8217;s Christian faith and encouraged expecting mothers to reach out if they were thinking about putting their baby up for adoption.
&#8220;We believe children are a gift from the Lord,&#8221; she wrote. &#8220;God has given us the desire to support an expecting mother who will choose life for her baby through the gift of adoption! We love our children, and our prayer is to expand our family while providing a safe &amp; loving home.&#8221;
Covington received a barrage of hateful messages after her post was shared in a private group, prompting her to delete it. One user wrote, “I’m adopted and I’d s*** in your mouth out of spite while you were asleep if I’d been raised that way.”
Facebook then informed her that her account did not follow its Community Standards on &#8220;human exploitation,&#8221; her attorneys said. The platform disabled her Instagram account as well as all of her Facebook accounts, including the one for her jewelry, skincare, and makeup business.
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&#8220;The animus-filled messages that Mrs. Covington received from other Facebook users were understandably distressing,&#8221; the ADF attorneys wrote in their letter to Meta. &#8220;But what is most distressing to her is Facebook’s decision to permanently disable all six of her accounts, causing her significant financial and personal harm.&#8221;
The ADF attorneys accused Meta of violating its free speech standards, breaching its own terms of service, and failing to uphold its promises. They requested the company respond to their request to reinstate the pro-life accounts by January 22.
&#8220;These situations provide a litmus test for whether Meta will live up to its public announcement or continue to censor and restrict the marketplace of ideas,&#8221; the legal team wrote.
&#8220;Facebook needs to keep the momentum going. If Zuckerberg wants to make a real impact related to censorship, he must immediately stop the weaponization of its content standards against pro-life groups like LifeNews. No group should be silenced for expressing their political or religious views on the platform. Meta’s promise to uphold free speech starts here,&#8221; Jeremy Tedesco, ADF&#8217;s senior counsel and senior vice president of corporate engagement said in a statement.
On Tuesday, Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg released a video <a href="https://about.fb.com/news/2025/01/meta-more-speech-fewer-mistakes/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">announcing</a> sweeping changes to his company&#8217;s content moderation policies, promising &#8220;more speech and fewer mistakes.&#8221;
&#8220;In recent years we’ve developed increasingly complex systems to manage content across our platforms, partly in response to societal and political pressure to moderate content. This approach has gone too far,&#8221; Meta said.
&#8220;We want to fix that and return to that fundamental commitment to free expression,&#8221; the company said.
Meta said it will end its third-party fact-checking program and move to a Community Notes model similar to what X, formerly Twitter, does. The company also said it will be &#8220;getting rid of a number of restrictions on topics like immigration, gender identity and gender that are the subject of frequent political discourse and debate&#8221; and it will also recommend more political content if a user has indicated they are interested.
Meta has been fiercely criticized in recent years for <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/meta-doubles-down-after-zuckerberg-reveals-how-facebook-censored-hunter-biden-laptop-story" target="_blank" rel="noopener">censoring</a> political content such as the Hunter Biden laptop story, which broke just before the 2020 election.
<h3><a href="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/1.9.2025-ADF-Letter-to-Meta.pdf">READ THE ADF&#8217;S LETTER TO META HERE</a></h3>

Key Speakers At The Meta Connect Event

EXCLUSIVE: Pro-Life Accounts Demand Meta Lift Suspensions After Free Speech Promises

Pro-Life Accounts Demand Meta Lift Suspensions After Free Speech Promises

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