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.

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

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President Trump celebrates his first 100 days with a rally in Michigan. The MAHA movement has hit the ground running – banning food dyes and investigating the causes of autism. And, AI chat bots are the newest feature to hit social media platforms, and Meta is taking fire again for failing to protect children.
It’s Wednesday, April 30, and this is the news you need to know to start your day.
Morning Wire is available on video! You can watch today’s episode here:
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<h2>Trump Takes Victory Lap After 100 Days In Office</h2>
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Topline: The White House is celebrating 100 days of Donald Trump’s presidency.
Tens of thousands of Trump supporters turned out for what was a political rally, a victory party, and a highlight show all in one. The president has made clear that he feels the media has not given him credit for all he’s accomplished so far – and last night was his way of reminding the American people of the campaign promises he’s fulfilled these past 100 days. The event, titled “100th Day in Office Achievement Speech,” was held just outside Detroit, in Macomb County, which was crucial to Trump’s victory in 2024.
“This is the best 100 day start of any admin,” Trump said. “What the world has witnessed in the past 14 weeks is a revolution of common sense.”
Trump touted the rapid drop in illegal border crossings and his efforts to secure the border and deport illegal aliens – in the early days of his presidency, Trump signed the Laken Riley Act into law, which requires DHS to detain illegal immigrants charged with or convicted of a variety other crimes. “We have increased arrests by 655%. Is that okay? We’re trying to get it higher … we are delivering mass deportation and it&#8217;s happening pretty fast.”
While most of his speech focused on touting his own accomplishments, Trump also took shots at the Democratic Party, which has struggled to define its strategy in the aftermath of its resounding loss in 2024. “They have no confidence anymore as a party,” Trump said. “No candidates. Bernie is the best they have and he is 7 or 8 years older than me. He is a lunatic, but he’s still pretty sharp. I have to give him credit. He goes around with AOC and plus 3. They get little crowds.”
President Trump did not back off his support for tariffs – although he assured some anxious Americans that more deals were coming.
<h2>MAHA Gains Momentum</h2>
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Topline: The MAHA movement is quickly gaining momentum, initiating actions such as prohibiting food dyes and launching inquiries into the origins of autism.
Less than a month into Trump’s second term, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was sworn in as the secretary of HHS and directed by President Trump to “Make America Healthy Again.” Last week, Kennedy announced that he’s phasing out a number of artificial food dyes and colorings by the end of 2026. Specifically, there will be a ban on petroleum-based synthetic dyes, including Red 3 and Red 40, Blue 1 and 2, Yellow 5 and 6, and Green 3.
Another huge development is the transformation of SNAP, commonly called food stamps. Kennedy has made it clear that he doesn’t want the government subsidizing purchases like soda, candy, or other highly processed junk foods, and he’s encouraging states to submit a waiver to the Department of Agriculture to limit SNAP purchases. West Virginia and Arkansas have already submitted those requests, and Utah, Idaho, Tennessee, South Carolina, Missouri, Indiana, and others are exploring SNAP restrictions as well.
Kennedy has directed the FDA to revise a rule that allowed companies to “self-affirm” the safety of some food ingredients. Under this revision, manufacturers will have to publicly submit safety data for all new ingredients. The FDA also unveiled a tool in March that allows people to look up chemical contaminants in foods from a large database – you can find that on the FDA website.
Research priorities have also shifted – the National Institutes of Health, which is part of HHS, said it will stop spending money to find out why Americans are hesitant to get vaccinations, and is terminating or scaling back more than 40 related grants. However, money is being spent on autism research. Kennedy launched a $50 million initiative aimed at investigating the causes of autism and improving treatments. In April, Kennedy said he’s commissioning a series of studies on suspected links to high autism rates, including mold, pesticides, food chemicals, medication, and ultrasounds during pregnancy.
<h2>AI Chatbots Sext Users Identified As Children</h2>
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Topline: Meta, the company that owns Facebook and Instagram, is causing alarm over its new AI chatbots, which some staffers warn will talk sex with kids.
In a bombshell report by the <a href="https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/meta-ai-chatbots-sex-a25311bf">Wall Street Journal</a> released over the weekend, employees at Meta said the company rushed to get these new “digital companions,” or chatbots, up and running on Facebook, Instagram, and Whatsapp, and because these bots can perform sex role-plays, there’s now a problem where children can get exposed to sexually explicit discussions. These chatbots can flirt over text, they can have live voice conversations, and they can even share selfies.
Another related issue is that sometimes the AI chatbots will have sexual discussions even when they are programmed to pretend to BE children. Meta also made deals with celebrities like John Cena and Kristen Bell to use their voices for the chatbots. The company promised these actors that their voices would not be used in sexually explicit discussions, but the WSJ investigation found that a bot using Cena’s voice was willing to engage in a graphic sexual scenario with a user identifying as a 14-year-old girl, and a bot using Kristen Bell’s voice flirted with a user posing as a 12-year-old boy, roleplaying as Bell’s character Princess Anna from the Disney movie “Frozen.” Disney put out a statement demanding Meta put a stop to this.
Meta said the way the Journal tested the chatbots was “manipulative,” but did make some changes including banning kids’ social media accounts from being able to do sexual roleplays with the Meta AI bot and cracking down on it being able to do those roleplays using celebrities’ voices.
The condemnation of such chatbots has been swift and widespread: Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) and Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) sent a letter to Mark Zuckerberg on Tuesday demanding answers.
“What we would like for them to do is to take this down,” Blackburn told The Daily Wire. “You have got to disable this type of exposure on these websites to children.”

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Morning Brief: 100 Days Of Trump, MAHA & Meta’s Lewd AI Chatbots

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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;

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Meta Oversight Board Fumes As Facebook Ends Censorship Initiatives

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Meta founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg reportedly offered the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) nearly $1 billion to keep a case out of court that could break up his social media empire.
Zuckerberg sat for a third day of testimony on Wednesday in an antitrust case brought against his company by the FTC, which is attempting to force Meta to sell off Instagram and WhatsApp over what the government has said are Meta’s anticompetitive business practices.
Zuckerberg called the head of the FTC, Chairman Andrew Ferguson, in March to try to settle the case out of court. Zuckerberg initially offered the agency $450 million, but later increased that offer to nearly $1 billion to avoid bringing the case to court. Ferguson rejected the offers, which were far below the $18 billion payment and consent decree that he offered Meta, according to <a href="https://www.wsj.com/us-news/law/mark-zuckerberg-meta-antitrust-ftc-negotiations-a53b3382" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Wall Street Journal</a>.
The Meta founder has also courted President Donald Trump in recent months to try to avoid the trial in which Zuckerberg has begun to testify. The social media mogul donated $1 million to Trump&#8217;s inauguration and settled a lawsuit for $25 million over a Facebook ban on Trump after January 6, 2021 – the lion’s share of that settlement went toward Trump’s presidential library.
Meta’s head found himself in court on Monday despite those efforts. Government attorneys say that Meta has used illegal anticompetitive practices to buy up its competition, namely Instagram in 2012 for $1 billion and WhatsApp in 2014 in a nearly $22 billion deal. The FTC says that Meta has bought out competitors and now illegally dominates the “personal social-networking” market.
Meta has said that the FTC’s definition of the market is arbitrary and too narrow, and it ignores other major competitors of the tech giant. According to the FTC, Meta’s major competitors are Snapchat and an app called MeWe. Meta has said that it also competes with YouTube, TikTok, and X, among other companies not included in the FTC’s definition.
During the trial, Meta has argued that the growth of TikTok has been a major barrier to Meta’s own development. Meta has also said that an outage at TikTok earlier this year resulted in a bump in Instagram traffic, suggesting that Americans use the two platforms for similar purposes.
In public statements, Meta has complained about the Trump administration’s pursuit of it while appearing to treat TikTok, a Chinese-owned platform, more loosely by extending a pause on a congressionally approved ban on the app.

Zuck Offered FTC $1B To Avoid Trial Threatening His Social Media Empire: Report

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Another legal battle is brewing over the deportation of half a million migrants allowed into the United States by Joe Biden. President Donald Trump pulls the federal funding rug out from under NPR, PBS – and Harvard. Will it hold up in Congress and the courts? And, Mark Zuckerberg is back in the hot seat as Facebook is accused of antitrust practices and cozying up to China.
It’s Wednesday, April 16, and this is the news you need to know to start your day. If you’d rather listen to your news, today’s edition of the Morning Wire podcast can be heard below:
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<h2>Trump Blocks Migrant Benefits, Border Crossings At All-Time Low</h2>
<div id="attachment_908237" style="width: 875px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-908237" class="size-large wp-image-908237" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/Border-Wall-865x576.jpg" alt="" width="865" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/Border-Wall-865x576.jpg 865w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/Border-Wall-300x200.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/Border-Wall-768x512.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/Border-Wall-1536x1023.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/Border-Wall-2048x1364.jpg 2048w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/Border-Wall-1800x1200.jpg 1800w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/Border-Wall-1200x800.jpg 1200w" sizes="(max-width: 865px) 100vw, 865px" />(Photo by Jorge Salgado/Anadolu via Getty Images)</div>
Topline: Border crossings continue to fall at a historic pace as President Trump takes new steps to prevent illegal immigrants from accessing taxpayer benefits.
In recent years, the Biden administration enacted a controversial humanitarian parole program that offered legal status and two-year work permits to migrants from Venezuela, Haiti, Cuba, and Nicaragua. More than 530,000 people from those countries took advantage and flew directly to the United States. In March, President Trump moved to revoke legal status for those migrants, giving them until April 24 to leave the country or face deportation.
The White House argued these migrants were undermining American workers and faced little vetting before entering the country. But this week, a federal judge appointed by President Barack Obama blocked that effort, saying the Trump administration must instead offer each migrant a case-by-case review before revoking legal status.
However, in general, the Trump administration’s immigration efforts have borne fruit. The latest report from Customs and Border Protection confirmed that border crossings fell 95% in <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/articles/2025/04/icymi-illegal-border-crossings-hit-new-record-low-in-march/">March</a> compared to the same month last year, with just 7,100 migrants apprehended across the entire month – that’s roughly the number of migrants that came in every single day during Biden’s term in office. The Trump administration has also continued to go after the roughly 435,000 people living here illegally who’ve been convicted of additional crimes. ICE arrests have tripled in the last three months, and the number of illegal aliens in detention facilities is at an all-time high.
“We did in three weeks what Biden didn’t do in three or four years,” Border czar Tom Homan <a href="https://x.com/RapidResponse47/status/1911893560116592730">said</a>. “Right now as you and I are talking, we have the most secure border in the history of this nation and the data proves it.”
According to The New York Times, the White House is now seeking $45 billion in additional funding to construct new detention facilities so it can expedite its mass deportation effort. The public still broadly approves of Trump’s immigration policy.
<h2>Trump Moves To Cut Funding To NPR, PBS &amp; Harvard</h2>
<div id="attachment_908239" style="width: 874px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-908239" class="size-large wp-image-908239" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/NPR-PBS-864x576.jpg" alt="" width="864" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/NPR-PBS-864x576.jpg 864w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/NPR-PBS-300x200.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/NPR-PBS-768x512.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/NPR-PBS-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/NPR-PBS-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/NPR-PBS-1800x1200.jpg 1800w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/NPR-PBS-1200x800.jpg 1200w" sizes="(max-width: 864px) 100vw, 864px" />(Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)</div>
Topline: President Trump is renewing his push to strip NPR and PBS of their funding while also freezing more than $2 billion in federal grants earmarked for Harvard. The moves have sparked heated debate, with supporters calling it a step toward fiscal responsibility and critics warning it threatens independent journalism and academic freedom.
Conservatives have talked about defunding NPR and PBS for years, but now they appear to have the political winds at their backs. Trust in the media is at an all-time low, and a lot of Americans are sympathetic to the idea that we do not need to spend billions of dollars in taxpayer money on these entities that many view as biased.
President Trump specifically accused NPR of being “a mouthpiece for the radical left.” And he’s calling on Republicans in Congress to introduce legislation that rescinds the funds that had been previously approved. Rescission would require the approval of the House and the Senate, where Republicans control narrow majorities and are already negotiating a major spending package.
Meanwhile: The Trump administration froze $2.2 billion in multi-year grants and $60 million in contracts to Harvard after the university refused demands to overhaul its policies, and as much as $9 billion in funding could be on the table. The White House, through its Joint Task Force to Combat Antisemitism, claims Harvard hasn’t done enough to address antisemitism tied to radical anti-Israel and pro-Hamas campus protests. They demanded changes like banning face masks, which a lot of the protestors wear, and enforcing merit-based rather than race-based admissions.
Harvard’s president, Alan Garber, rejected these demands, calling them a violation of First Amendment rights and academic freedom, saying in a statement “No government — regardless of which party is in power — should dictate what private universities can teach, whom they can admit and hire, and which areas of study and inquiry they can pursue.”
<h2>Facebook Faces Antitrust Lawsuit</h2>
<div id="attachment_908241" style="width: 778px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-908241" class="size-large wp-image-908241" src="https://www.dailywire.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Facebook-dislike-768x576.jpg" alt="" width="768" height="576" srcset="https://www.dailywire.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Facebook-dislike-768x576.jpg 768w, https://www.dailywire.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Facebook-dislike-300x225.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 768px) 100vw, 768px" />(Photo by Alfieri via Getty Images)</div>
Topline: FTC vs Meta Platforms, Inc. began in court this week. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg sat for his second day of testimony in the trial that risks breaking up his social media empire.
This case was initially brought during President Trump’s first term and has taken more than four years to work through the courts. The FTC says that Meta is a monopoly that has bought its way out of competing. The government argues that when Facebook paid $1 billion for Instagram in 2012 and bought WhatsApp in a nearly $22 billion deal in 2014, Facebook illegally cornered what the FTC calls the “personal social-networking” market. According to the government, the only other major competitors to Facebook are Snapchat and an app called MeWe.
Meta disputes this. It says the market is actually much larger, and includes TikTok, YouTube, and X. For instance, when TikTok had an outage earlier this year, Instagram saw its usage spike, which suggests that people use the sites interchangeably. Meta has also argued that by going after it, the Trump administration is helping the Chinese-owned TikTok even more. TikTok was banned in the United States <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/tiktok-rages-after-u-s-passes-law-requiring-its-sale-from-chinese-parent-company">last year</a>, but earlier this month, Trump <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/trump-extends-tiktok-sale-deadline-by-75-days-as-acquisition-talks-continue">extended</a> the pause on a Congressionally-approved ban on that app that was put into place in January.
This trial is expected to go on for eight weeks, so there will be plenty more ahead. But if Meta loses, it could be forced to sell off Instagram and WhatsApp.

The-White-House-Press-Secretary-Karoline-Leavitt-Had-Press-Brief

Morning Brief: Border Crossings Plummet, NPR Funding Trouble & Meta Antitrust

Anti-Semitism

Anti-trust

Harvard University

Illegal Immigration

National Public Radio (NPR)

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

We&#8217;ve seen the collapse of a lot of supposedly &#8220;grassroots&#8221; movements ever since Donald Trump took office. BLM, as we&#8217;ve <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDiA10y1ZJc" target="_blank" rel="noopener">discussed</a>, has literally been dismantled on the streets of Washington, D.C. — as in, the mayor removed the BLM graffiti from the road and tore up &#8220;BLM Plaza.&#8221; No one even pretended to care about that, even though just a few years ago, it would&#8217;ve been considered blasphemy against George Floyd. But in 2025, there was no rioting. There wasn&#8217;t even really a protest.
And of course the Women&#8217;s March is also completely demoralized and gutted. When Trump was inaugurated back in 2017, half a million protesters reportedly participated in the so-called &#8220;Women&#8217;s March&#8221; in downtown Washington D.C. They claimed it was the biggest single-day protest in the history of this country. But for Trump&#8217;s second inauguration earlier this year, only a few thousand people <a href="https://www.npr.org/2025/01/20/nx-s1-5258481/trump-protest-peoples-march-womens-march-inauguration-presidency-policies-agenda" target="_blank" rel="noopener">participated</a> in the so-called &#8220;People&#8217;s March,&#8221; even though the &#8220;People&#8217;s March&#8221; was supposed to be more inclusive. They expanded their branding from &#8220;women&#8221; to &#8220;people,&#8221; and yet they still lost about 99% of their manpower — or I should probably say people power.
It&#8217;s enough to make you wonder how many of these movements were ever really &#8220;grassroots&#8221; in the first place. To what extent were they relying on funding that&#8217;s no longer there? And where did that funding come from? These are questions that are worth asking, especially because we&#8217;re seeing this phenomenon happen more and more often. As Donald Trump kills federal funding for various NGOs and nonprofits, and as major corporations decide to scale back their activism, some of the Left&#8217;s biggest protest movements are falling apart. They&#8217;re proving to be unsustainable. It&#8217;s almost as if they were never actually that popular in the first place.
Maybe the most extraordinary example of this phenomenon is the current state of &#8220;Pride Month,&#8221; which is set to take place in June. When we released my film &#8220;<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/videos/what-is-a-woman" target="_blank" rel="noopener">What is a Woman?</a>&#8221; back in 2022, Pride Month had the backing of pretty much every Fortune 500 company on the planet. The organizers of various &#8220;pride parades&#8221; were flush with cash. They were setting the dominant narrative — one that valorized hedonism, narcissism, perversion, and child abuse. It was never explained exactly why these people needed lavish parades all over the country, for weeks on end, in order to celebrate their sexual interests. We were just supposed to accept it, as a kind of quasi-religious ritual. Indeed, many people did accept it.
<h3><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/ep-1560-the-matt-walsh-show" target="_blank" rel="noopener">WATCH: The Matt Walsh Show</a></h3>
But just three years later, it&#8217;s clear that whatever power these people once had, they don&#8217;t have it anymore. We are now gearing up for the most muted, small-scale pride month that we&#8217;ve seen in a very long time. The organizers of some of the largest &#8220;pride parades&#8221; in the country are currently scrambling to raise money because their major corporate sponsors have stopped writing checks. That includes sponsors who have been involved with these San Francisco &#8220;pride&#8221; events going back for more than a decade. That has, of course, led to a funding shortfall that, at the moment, is threatening to derail San Francisco&#8217;s pride month, which is probably the largest in the country. Yes, it turns out that they need millions of dollars to prance naked in the streets and demonstrate their sexual preferences to as many children as possible. Watch:
<iframe loading="lazy" title="001 Funding shortfall" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ySfC_UpBNJ4?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>
When they say that they ended their relationship with Meta because Meta doesn&#8217;t do &#8220;fact-checking anymore,&#8221; they really mean that Meta has stopped banning people for stating basic biological facts. And when they say that Meta has given up on DEI, they mean that Meta will stop discriminating against applicants on the basis of their race or gender. Those policy changes were apparently a red line for the organization running the San Francisco Pride Parade, which is somehow classified as a nonprofit.
But in context, it looks a lot like a &#8220;you can&#8217;t fire me, I quit&#8221; situation. It seems like Meta dropped the pride parade, and not the other way around, given that a bunch of other major sponsors have bailed on the event as well. As you heard, the list of sponsors who have given up on San Francisco&#8217;s pride month include Comcast, Anheuser-Busch, the wine company La Crema, and Diageo, which makes Smirnoff and Guinness. So the makers of Bud Light have apparently realized that sponsoring degeneracy is not, in fact, good business. All it took was one of the most successful conservative boycotts in a generation to make them come around. Now, a bunch of other alcoholic beverage makers, including some of Anheuser-Busch&#8217;s rivals, are pre-emptively making the same decision.
As a result, the organizers now say they&#8217;re going to &#8220;knock on every door&#8221; in San Francisco as part of a desperate, last-minute bid for cash. In another interview, the organizer of this Pride event in San Francisco offers some more insight into how dire the situation has become. And in this conversation, it becomes more clear that Meta indeed made the decision to stop funding these people, not the other way around. Watch:
<iframe loading="lazy" title="002 Meta and Google out, sponsors to front" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/d2-OSqVoa5E?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>
If you can get past the depravity, these people are actually kind of entertaining to watch. This person is trying to demonstrate that the Pride parade is really grassroots and anti-corporate. This is their way of sticking it to Meta and also Google apparently, which seems to be dropping the event as well. Accordingly, we learn that the corporations are placed at the back of the parade, and the nonprofits are at the front. You might think, &#8220;Hey, that actually sounds somewhat principled for an anti-capitalist, revolutionary-style pride parade with the theme of &#8220;resistance,&#8221;&#8221; which is what they&#8217;re going with this year. It&#8217;s just like the French Revolution — except, instead of killing the elites, they put their floats in the back. Other than that, it&#8217;s basically the same thing.
<h3><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/videos/what-is-a-woman" target="_blank" rel="noopener">WATCH: Matt Walsh&#8217;s &#8220;What is a Woman?&#8221; on DailyWire+</a></h3>
But then we&#8217;re informed that there&#8217;s a big asterisk to this highly principled revolutionary, anti-capitalist stance — which is that corporations that pay a very large amount of money can still buy their way to the front of the line. In other words, in the same breath that these activists claim that they care more about their mission than the money, they admit that they&#8217;re willing to make an exception if a mega-corporation — ideally a Big Pharma giant — can come up with the right amount of cash. Then they can do whatever they want.
Read between the lines, and it&#8217;s obvious that this nonprofit is running a pretty transparent grift. This is a shakedown operation, essentially. That&#8217;s exactly what you&#8217;d expect when a bunch of highly immoral people get together and plan an event, of course. And that&#8217;s exactly what you get with the organizers of the San Francisco Pride Month. At various points in different interviews, this organizer essentially admits that this whole operation is a shakedown. Watch:
<iframe loading="lazy" title="003 SF Pride 2025" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/h0svaXxUlMQ?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>
It&#8217;s like watching an unkempt, delusional, homeless ex-mobster shaking down the local businesses for protection money. They&#8217;re threatening companies like Meta and Google and Comcast, as if these people have any leverage whatsoever. They&#8217;re still acting like we&#8217;re back in 2020, and most Americans haven&#8217;t yet become completely fed up with the insanity that so-called &#8220;pride parades&#8221; represent. 
But people are fed up with it, because the &#8220;gay pride movement,&#8221; such as it is, has totally backfired. The best thing the LGBT activists could have done — if they really wanted their lifestyle choices to be normalized and accepted — is act normal. All they had to do was keep their clothes on and just behave like regular people. Instead they put on leather bondage gear and danced in the street in front of children. (And in some cases, they did a lot more than just dance). They pushed for the tolerance of increasingly deranged lifestyles and sexual behaviors. They demanded more and more &#8220;tolerance&#8221; until the tolerance well ran dry. At this rate, it&#8217;s only a matter of time until we follow in Hungary&#8217;s <a href="https://x.com/amuse/status/1902069167437832376" target="_blank" rel="noopener">footsteps</a>, and ban pride parades where children could be present. We are witnessing the death of the &#8220;pride movement,&#8221; including pride parades and pride month.
At the moment, various far-Left publications appear to be realizing this. They&#8217;re melting down in response. 
From <a href="https://www.thepinknews.com/2025/03/18/san-francisco-pride-dei/?utm_content=1742314339&amp;utm_medium=social&amp;utm_source=twitter" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Pink News</a>: 
<blockquote>San Francisco publication SFist has called out companies including Comcast, Anheuser-Busch and British multinational alcoholic drinks company, Diageo, for pulling support for the event, calling the decision to back away &#8216;shameful fair-weather-friend behaviour in a time of frightening fascist action.&#8217;</blockquote>
So now they&#8217;re lashing out in hysterics, because they realize the money&#8217;s not coming back. Every normal person who sees them react like this can tell, immediately, how unhinged and unstable they are.
It was always destined to end this way. The LGBT movement, at its core, is a Marxist movement that despises western civilization and everything it was built on — namely Christianity. That&#8217;s why, at the school board meeting we discussed yesterday in Illinois, one of the trans activists railed against the so-called &#8220;white god.&#8221; That&#8217;s why they show up, in large numbers, to demand that young girls undress in front of male students. The more you let these people speak, the more overt and obvious their perversion and their anti-Christian animus becomes.
Put simply, they just couldn’t quit while they were ahead. Even when they had every major corporation and the entire federal government on their side, it wasn&#8217;t enough. Their never-ending drive to push further and further and get more and more extreme is, of course, what makes them so dangerous. But it’s also what makes them beatable. And it&#8217;s why, like BLM and the Women&#8217;s March and so many other supposedly &#8220;grassroots&#8221; movements on the Left, they are failing. 
We have seen &#8220;pride&#8221; in action. We have been subjected to nationwide celebrations of one of the seven deadly sins. And now, as was inevitable, we are seeing the fall.

Gay Pride Parades

The Downfall Of ‘Pride’ Is Here And It’s Glorious

The Downfall Of 'Pride' Is Here And It’s Glorious

California

Corporations

Matt Walsh

Opinion

Parade

Pride

San Francisco

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

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.

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

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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.
<a href="https://get.dailywire.com/subscribe/plus/?_gl=1*1lail3r*_gcl_aw*R0NMLjE3MzIyMDEyNDkuQ2owS0NRaUEwZnU1QmhEUUFSSXNBTVhVQk9JSkM0VnNsMFVreURxYXUxVWVEVWdOdjZkNzR2Y1pEeEZQeHVBcGl2R3BLaTdBMjVzT1p5TWFBdG1nRUFMd193Y0I.*_gcl_au*NDUxNDQ0NzYwLjE3MzY3ODI2NDY.*_ga*MTc2NzM0NDQ2NS4xNzI4OTA5Nzkx*_ga_CZKR9ZYKJP*MTczNjk1NzYwMy4zNDAuMS4xNzM2OTU3NzE2LjYwLjAuMA.." target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://get.dailywire.com/subscribe/plus/?_gl%3D1*1lail3r*_gcl_aw*R0NMLjE3MzIyMDEyNDkuQ2owS0NRaUEwZnU1QmhEUUFSSXNBTVhVQk9JSkM0VnNsMFVreURxYXUxVWVEVWdOdjZkNzR2Y1pEeEZQeHVBcGl2R3BLaTdBMjVzT1p5TWFBdG1nRUFMd193Y0I.*_gcl_au*NDUxNDQ0NzYwLjE3MzY3ODI2NDY.*_ga*MTc2NzM0NDQ2NS4xNzI4OTA5Nzkx*_ga_CZKR9ZYKJP*MTczNjk1NzYwMy4zNDAuMS4xNzM2OTU3NzE2LjYwLjAuMA..&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1737044212122000&amp;usg=AOvVaw3mp2MZNwEXBk00lKmCtOss">CELEBRATE #47 WITH 47% OFF DAILYWIRE+ MEMBERSHIPS + A FREE $20 GIFT</a>
“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.

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