Zuckerberg’s Meta-morphosis on Social Media Censorship

On January 7, 2025, Mark Zuckerberg released a video announcement about imminent DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) changes at Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram. Zuckerberg’s summary comment—a longer and edited version of which can be found here—was as follows: “It’s time to get back to our roots around free expression. We’re replacing fact checkers with Community Notes, simplifying our policies and focusing on reducing mistakes. Looking forward to this next chapter.”

Zuckerberg, who dropped out of Harvard at age 19 to create Facebook in 2004, provides some background in the five-minute video. After Donald Trump’s first election in 2016, the legacy media pushed hard for social media platforms to monitor the spread of false information. The problem was that third party fact-checkers were too politically biased and “out of touch with mainstream discourse.” Zuckerberg ultimately blames “complex systems” created to moderate content (especially politics), saying that there were “too many mistakes and too much censorship.”

Acknowledging that social media censorship has “gone too far,” Zuckerberg claims that 2024 was “a cultural tipping point”—referring to the re-election of Trump. Specifically, the policy changes will include removing fact-checkers (replacing them with something like the Community Notes on Twitter/X), reducing filter restrictions, moving the content review team from California to Texas, and working with the Trump administration to fight censorship in other countries.

As if on cue, late night hosts immediately began anxiety spiraling. Jimmy Fallon, describing the Meta move as an embrace of fake news, said, “This is like Chipotle announcing that it’s ending health inspections.” Telling a similar joke about Del Taco, Jimmy Kimmel added that it was “the end of truth as we know it.” Also in response to Zuckerberg’s video, The New York Times, in a serious lack of self-awareness, claimed that fact-checkers disagree with Zuckerberg that fact-checkers are a problem.

Pretentious hand-wringing aside, this does signal a major shift for Meta. In fact, in his announcement, Zuckerberg conveniently left out many of the backstory details that reveal just how massive this change is. Satirical sources were quick to point out the irony of Zuckerberg’s “major shift toward no longer doing the things I said we weren’t doing.” While Zuckerberg did mention the 2016 election, he wasn’t specific about how Facebook caved to the legacy media’s allegations about the now-debunked “Russian collusion” story. Government pressure joined media pressure, and in a 2017 Intelligence Committee hearing, Senator Dianne Feinstein threatened lawyers from Facebook, Google, and Twitter to “do something about [Russian collusion on their platforms]—or we will.”

After January 6, 2021, Facebook banned Trump’s account and didn’t reinstate it until 2023. In 2022, Zuckerberg admitted on Joe Rogan’s podcast that Facebook had worked with the FBI to suppress the 2020 news story about Hunter Biden’s laptop. It wasn’t until 2024 in a letter to the House Judiciary Committee that Zuckerberg expressed regret for yielding to government pressure to censor things such as humor and satire about COVID-19.

Facebook’s about-face is so prominent that it would be a mistake to call it “quiet quitting.” But while other companies haven’t been as vocal, many of them have also cut back on DEI initiatives in what some have called the “Great Retreat.” For several years, particularly in the wake of George Floyd’s death in 2020, Fortune 1000 companies pledged $340 billion to promote DEI. But since as early as 2023, many top companies have pulled back, including McDonald’s, Google, Lowe’s, Ford, Toyota, Nissan, Boeing, Walmart, Amazon, Starbucks, John Deere, Tractor Supply, and Harley-Davidson. This cutting back has taken the form of re-adjusting hiring language and quotas (“representation” goals) and cutting sponsorships for pride events.

Numerous causes have contributed to what the kids these days might refer to as a “vibe shift.” Elon Musk purchased Twitter in 2022 for $44 billion (about a tenth of his net worth) and immediately made changes regarding censorship. In mid-2023, Bud Light and Target faced public backlash and significant revenue losses for their marketing tactics and merchandise offerings, showing other companies the reality of the phrase “Go woke, go broke.” Also in 2023, the Supreme Court ruled against affirmative action in higher education admissions. The possible nail in the coffin was Trump’s re-election, including his winning the popular vote.

On the one hand, we have reasons to be skeptical that these Meta changes stem from a genuine re-evaluation of core values. After Trump’s win in November, Zuckerberg met with Trump at Mar-a-Lago and donated $1 million to Trump’s inauguration fund, and he is not the only big tech mogul to work to ingratiate himself to the new administration. It is entirely possible that the change is mostly about money and power, and the policies could very well change again with a new administration. On the other hand, even with the obvious vibe shift occurring, it does take some level of courage to move against people and organizations that, in a heartbeat, will label you a racist for pulling back on DEI support. Furthermore, Trump supporter Dana White joined Meta’s board, which signals a more permanent change of direction.

The censorship matter is admittedly complex. In 1644, Puritan poet John Milton wrote a treatise on censorship titled Areopagitica, which has become a kind of founding document for the principle of freedom of speech. Writing in response to the English Parliament’s decision to censor works before they were even published, Milton argues that human beings need to exercise their discernment muscles, and truth is strong enough to win over falsehood “in a free and open encounter.” However, in his treatise, even Milton opposed absolute free speech, such as blasphemy. Similarly, the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, providing the right to freedom of speech, does not protect defamation, threats, or intimidation.

This tension has repeated itself in related debates about academic freedom and freedom of speech, from William F. Buckley’s God and Man at Yale: The Superstitions of “Academic Freedom” (1951) to the debate between Yoram Hazony and Robert George in Public Discourse (2024) over “absolute free speech.” Later in 2024, Professor George debated Michael Knowles at an ISI event, which I had the privilege of attending in person. While George argued in principle against indoctrination and for presenting the best arguments from opposing sides in a free marketplace of ideas, Knowles sided with Buckley, arguing for the value of alternative institutions (e.g., Christian universities) committed to the formation of students.

A main point of relevance for Regent University is that as one of those alternative institutions—a non-Ivy university with faith commitments—Regent prioritizes the formation of students into leaders with world-changing capabilities. Sometimes much is made of the phrase, “Don’t teach students what to think. Teach them how to think.” However, Regent faculty especially should remember the importance of Christian doctrine as we integrate faith and learning—the promotion of doctrine is not necessarily indoctrination (as it’s often negatively construed). Thus, as much as we might celebrate Meta’s shift toward the support of free expression, we shouldn’t forget the tension between promoting freedom of speech and being unashamed in the promotion of what is objectively true, good, and beautiful.