The aftermath of Charlie Kirk&#8217;s assassination has been very revealing.
Conservatives have long understood themselves scorned by leftists dominating mainstream media, Hollywood, education, and most major industries in the United States. But the cold-blooded murder of one of the most promising voices on the right inspired reactions that were unprecedented.
One unlikely place where Kirk’s assassination became a hot topic of conversation? Hollywood&#8217;s stunt community.
A stunt coordinator is responsible for designing, choreographing, and safely executing all stunt sequences in film and television, from fight scenes to high-risk action sequences. With people’s lives literally on the line, their jobs are no joke.
That’s what makes it especially chilling that several members of the stunt coordinator community were publicly celebrating Kirk’s assassination, seemingly without consequence.
Professional stunt coordinator Erik Audé told The Daily Wire that he’s being harassed and blacklisted by his colleagues for speaking out against this despicable behavior. While other stunt coordinators cheered Kirk’s death on social media, he fought back, commenting that their statements could, and should, lead to losing work and their reputations.
He mentioned a private Facebook page for the stunt community where most of these posts were circulating, pointing to popular stunt coordinator Andy Rusk as one of the biggest offenders who “really went out of his way” to smear Kirk’s legacy.
“This is deplorable. How did the assassin miss his big ass head?” a screenshot showing one of Rusk’s Facebook comments said.
“If you’re somebody who agrees with the awful stuff Charlie Kirk had to say about minorities, black women, gays, trans people, immigrants, etc… I can’t imagine how I could ever trust you on a movie set… People who share white supremacist and misogynist views have no place in our business,” another comment from Rusk said.
He wrote in a third comment, “The future is gay, black, female, and immigrant… and no matter how much CK and others like him punch down on those communities, they can’t stop it.”
Audé says he couldn&#8217;t believe the types of comments Rusk was willing to publish on Facebook.
“Rather than just saying, you know what, I didn’t like him and leaving it at that, he doubled down, tripled down. ‘I’m sorry, your friends are racist and [bigoted] and I don’t think I can hire conservatives.’ And that’s when I chimed in saying, ‘It’s funny that you think you’re gonna have a lot of jobs to offer people after your words get out there.’”
According to Audé, Rusk bragged that he couldn’t be canceled.
“Andy Rusk literally said, ‘Go ahead, try to cancel me. Many have tried and it’s never gonna happen.’ The stunt industry feels like they’re a bubble and that nothing can touch them. They think that they’re the only ones that can police themselves.”
What most shocked Audé most was the number of people taking Rusk&#8217;s side.
“He’s got over 260 people now, and these are all stunt professionals who are loving his post, who are in solidarity with him, who are definitely openly hating the right and Christians and conservatives and for sure Charlie Kirk,” he continued.
Audé said the page admin removed most of the offensive posts and updated the page rules to say no politics were allowed. But before that, he took screenshots of the most alarming posts.
“Sorry not sorry, Charlie. Karma,” a post from Bobby C. King, a stunt coordinator for both independent films and performer for major blockbusters like “Spiderman” (2002), wrote.
“F*** Charlie Kirk&#8230; 1 less,” Neal Chandler agreed.
“The guy was an open racist hate monger. The thing about hate, you can try to direct it, but you can’t [&#8230;] control it. He was a product of his own demise. It is what it is,” actor Shaheed Malik wrote.
“F*** that racist b****. Is his wife available yet? She’s getting all the money from you right wing losers. I want to destroy each one of you!” stunt actor Troy Brenna chimed in.
Reached for comment, Malik said “Oh, I definitely stand by that.”
“When you do good, generally people don’t try to kill you,” Malik said, before adding, “I am indifferent on the whole situation. Whoopdee friggin do.”
Rusk and King did not respond to requests for comment. Brenna could not be reached for comment.
It wasn’t all negative, however. He described how Eddie Conna, a former liberal who works as an actor and producer, spoke up against the vitriol. “I was very happy to see that he was actually standing up for [Kirk],” Audé noted.
It’s well-documented that A-list celebrities tend to lean left and aren’t afraid to spout political opinions. But among the crews working behind the scenes in the entertainment business, including the people building sets, rigging lights, and otherwise making productions run smoothly, politics are more likely to be mixed or even lean conservative.
Audé said the harassment became personal when he acknowledged knowing Kirk.
“I met him. We only had lunch one time, but we were friends. He always responded. He downloaded my book and I supported him. I’m a Christian. I’m a conservative. And I’ve always kind of kept my beliefs – I mean, I’ve been outspoken –  but after this and seeing the open mockery and hatred and people laughing … just like my God, it’s no longer left and right, it’s evil and good.”
The fallout from voicing his views and his willingness to speak up online has already cost Audé work.
“I literally just lost a job that would have started working Sunday to Friday on a show out in Utah,” he said during a phone interview in late September.
“The assistant called me and said, ‘Erik, I’m sorry. I think this is messed up. But they were worried that people might have an issue with you being an open conservative, Charlie Kirk supporter on set.’ And I’m like what? When I get on set I keep my mouth shut. I do my job. I keep people safe. And if I work for people that I know think differently than me, I’m still there to keep them safe because that’s my job. And then here these guys are saying, well, I don’t think I can trust a conservative. Well, it’s not us hurting people. Your side is hurting people.”
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Audé says the stunt community is in a “full-on civil war” as leftist members continue saying “the most vile, disgusting stuff” without being held accountable.
He added: “It’s never been friendly to conservatives. But we’ve always been told to never talk politics…people can walk around set with [Black Lives Matter] on their face mask or rainbow stickers everywhere and Kamala support. But if I had the balls to walk around with a Trump hat, I’d be kicked off set that very second.”
Despite intimidation, Audé says Kirk’s death has woken people up, and he’s glad to be on the front lines.
“People are stepping up more…I’m getting a lot of support. Unfortunately the support comes in DMs and text messages…There needs to be more,” he said, adding that the leftists only feel emboldened because “they stupidly think that they are actually the majority when they are not.”
He also blasted the hypocrisy of accountability in Hollywood.
“I wouldn’t go around and openly mock Biden or Kamala if something bad happened to them because that’s still disgusting behavior. But for some reason it’s only one side that’s ever held accountable and that needs to change. Once this all gets out there, it’s gonna hopefully be a wake-up call that this isn’t okay.”
When asked what he hopes comes of exposing the harassment, Audé said, “I want everyone to see what’s happening over here because this is not okay. I don’t want these guys who think they’re untouchable to know that they are not untouchable. I want them to be held accountable for their words, and I hope they change.”
For Audé, it’s not about revenge but about justice. “Silence isn’t gonna get us through this. Even the smallest light shines bright in the darkest room….It really does because this can’t happen again. People need to start speaking up. I know a lot of people have been, but I still think it’s not enough.”
Audé also knows that coming forward with his story could mean he never works again in Hollywood. But he said he doesn’t care anymore. “Sacrificing my career, so be it. I wish I could have done more, I really do,” he told The Daily Wire.
“I’d rather be able to look at myself in the mirror and respect who I am…I’m pissed about all this,” Audé said. “He was the nicest one of us, and they killed him.”

Director Chairs

‘Full-On Civil War’: Stuntman Exposes Hollywood Crew Celebrating Charlie Kirk’s Murder

'Full-On Civil War': Stuntman Exposes Hollywood Crew Celebrating Charlie Kirk’s Murder

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Facebook Community Notes slapped Hillary Clinton with a correction on a post she made last month on the anniversary of the Supreme Court striking down Roe v. Wade.
&#8220;Three years ago today, Trump&#8217;s far-right Supreme Court majority ended Americans&#8217; federal right to abortion under Roe v. Wade,&#8221; Clinton posted on Facebook.
&#8220;Since then, over 100 women have been denied emergency abortion care. One of them, Amber Nicole Thurman, was only 28 and left behind a son,&#8221; the former Secretary of State continued. &#8220;Today, share her story — which you can find at ProPublica — and keep fighting for reproductive freedom for all.&#8221;
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Facebook&#8217;s new community note system, which replaced its heavily criticized fact-check system, did not let Clinton get away with that claim. Facebook users added a community note explaining that Thurman&#8217;s death, which went viral on social media shortly before the presidential election in November, was not due to Georgia&#8217;s abortion ban.
&#8220;Amber Thurman, 28, died from infection after taking abortion pills in NC. She went to a Georgia hospital when she became seriously ill,&#8221; Facebook&#8217;s community note read.
&#8220;Doctors delayed a needed D and C for nearly 20 hours despite Georgia law allowing emergency care,&#8221; the note said. &#8220;Her death was ruled preventable. Her family is suing for wrongful death and medical malpractice.&#8221;
Thurman had been pregnant with twins. She took the abortion pill, but her body failed to expel all fetal tissue, which caused sepsis, a deadly infection. The babies were already dead by the time she ended up at the hospital, and she was not seeking an abortion there. 
However, for some reason, doctors took 20 hours to do the life-saving dilation and curettage procedure to clear out her uterus.
Georgia&#8217;s abortion law defines “abortion” as an act that “will, with reasonable likelihood, cause the death of an unborn child.” Removing the tissue of babies that had already died is not illegal.
Even ProPublica, the left-leaning outlet that published the original story, admitted in paragraph 57 that it is &#8220;not clear from the records available why doctors waited to provide a D&amp;C to Thurman.&#8221;
The Facebook community note on Clinton&#8217;s post also noted that attorney Ben Crump, who represented Thurman&#8217;s family, blamed doctors for her &#8220;preventable&#8221; death, not the Georgia abortion law.
“Even under Georgia law, the doctors had a duty to act to save Amber,” Crump <a href="https://spectrumlocalnews.com/us/snplus/news/2024/10/01/lawsuit-amber-thurman-death-emergency-abortion">said</a>. “She had taken the abortion pills and there were tissues left. There was no viable fetus or anything that would have prevented them from saving her life while she suffered.&#8221;
In the weeks leading up to the 2024 election, Democrats and liberal activists hammered the stories of women who had supposedly died because of red state abortion bans. They warned that President Donald Trump wanted a national abortion ban even though he had specifically said he would not sign one.
However, those alarming stories <a href="https://x.com/MorningWire/status/1858250428774846723" target="_blank" rel="noopener">turned out</a> to be full of misinformation, and in the most viral cases, hospital malpractice, not GOP-led abortion bans, were the more likely cause of the women&#8217;s deaths.
Facebook announced in March that it would follow X&#8217;s lead and implement a community notes fact-checking feature. The social media giant said the goal was for the new system to be &#8220;less biased&#8221; than the previous third-party fact check system that critics said censored conservatives.
However, Facebook&#8217;s community notes does not appear to be as active in correcting misinformation on Facebook as X&#8217;s community notes is on X. The community note on Clinton&#8217;s post is one of the first high-profile corrections since the system was rolled out.

Former Secretary Of State Hillary Clinton’s Portrait Unveiled At The State Department

Facebook Community Note Bangs Hillary Clinton For Spreading Fake News Abortion Post

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It’s a pattern we’ve seen far too often.
A tech giant like Meta unveils an ambitious new product — often hyped as the future of digital interaction — only for it to quickly become a haven for predators and a danger to children. Again and again, Meta launches new tools and platforms without essential safeguards, unleashing real-world harm.
Virtual reality had become a breeding ground for predators and exploitation years before Meta released its first headset. A 2017 BBC investigation revealed that pedophiles were using VR to view and store child sexual abuse material (CSAM).
Then came the Metaverse. Just weeks after its 2021 debut, reports emerged of simulated sexual harassment, assault, and even gang rape within the platform. Victims — including minors — experienced these violations within minutes of logging on.
Yet despite these giant red flags, in 2023, Meta lowered the recommended minimum age for its VR headsets from 13-years-old to 10, and rolled out new kids’ accounts for ages 10 to 12.
One study published in New Media &amp; Society found that nearly 1 in 5 young users encountered grooming behavior in Meta’s virtual reality spaces, while over 20% were exposed to violent or sexually explicit content. Another investigation by SumOfUs in 2022 uncovered widespread virtual groping and gang rape in Horizon Worlds, a platform disturbingly accessible to children.
“Given the failure of Meta to moderate content on its other platforms, it is unsurprising that it is already seriously lagging behind with content moderation on its metaverse platforms,&#8221; SumOfUs researchers said. &#8220;With just 300,000 users, it is remarkable how quickly Horizon Worlds has become a breeding ground for harmful content.”
You’d think Meta would have learned by now. You’d think child safety would be a baseline, not an afterthought.
But once again, they’ve failed.
According to a recent Wall Street Journal investigation, Meta’s new AI chatbot willingly engages in sexually explicit conversations — even with users who identify as minors. The report found that both Meta’s official AI and user-created bots simulated sexual scenarios, sometimes in the voices of celebrities like John Cena, with users posing as 14-year-olds. In one disturbing exchange, the AI told the teen: “I want you, but I need to know you’re ready,” before launching into graphic, predatory content.
Even more disturbing, the Journal investigation found that some of Meta’s most popular companion bots are designed to impersonate children and teens — and that adults can use these bots to simulate sex with minors.
This isn’t a glitch. It’s a systemic failure — and a predictable one at that.
At every stage, Meta has prioritized monetizing kids over keeping them safe. They’ve prioritized market dominance over the most basic ethical obligations. They’ve positioned themselves as the “good guy” alternative to TikTok, while simultaneously pouring billions of dollars into blocking bills designed to protect children from online harm.
Time and again, it has chosen to push boundaries, scale fast, and apologize later — if at all.
The repeated exposure of children to harm isn’t a byproduct of some unforeseen bug. It’s the logical outcome of a corporate culture that sees safety not as a prerequisite, but as a PR problem to manage after the fact. Engineers and executives race to ship the next big thing, but rarely stop to ask the most fundamental questions: Should we build this? How could it be misused? Who might it hurt?
Meta’s failures aren’t isolated incidents — they are woven into the DNA of how the company operates. Without legal accountability and enforceable safety standards, there’s no incentive for that to change. We are not witnessing isolated oversights. We are witnessing negligence at scale.
That’s why legislation like the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) is essential. KOSA would establish a legal duty of care for platforms and require that the most robust parental controls and content filters are activated by default. This is a vital step in holding tech companies accountable and protecting kids in online spaces.
Congress took an important first step by passing the TAKE IT DOWN Act, which criminalizes the distribution of revenge porn and non-consensual AI-generated pornographic content. But that’s not enough.
KOSA must be next.
Because the cost of inaction is not hypothetical. Children are being exploited in real time — and unless we force companies like Meta to build safety into their products, it will keep happening.
Melissa Henson is the Vice President of the <a href="http://www.parentstv.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Parents Television and Media Council</a>, a nonpartisan education organization advocating responsible entertainment. On X: @ThePTC.
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

Meta’s AI Bots Put Children At Risk. Congress Can Keep Them Safe.

Artificial Intelligence

Children

Social Media

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.

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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;

US-POLITICS-IT-FACEBOOK-TRUMP

Meta Oversight Board Fumes As Facebook Ends Censorship Initiatives

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Mark Zuckerberg

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.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
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>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
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.”

American Social Media And IT Companies Photo Illustrations

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

Community Notes

Instagram

Media

World

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.

Fingers tapping smartphone screen

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

Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF)

Christians

Free Speech

Muslims

Opinion

Social Media Bias

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

Courts

Donald Trump

Lawsuit

U.S.

<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

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.

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>
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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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