Mark Zuckerberg has made the internet safe for democracy
"Liberty will never more be without an asylum." - Lafayette on the creation of the United States
When Elon Musk bought Twitter, the American political establishment sought to shut him down. The media establishment confidently predicted a rise in hate speech and misinformation, disinformation, and/or malinformation (take your pick). The corporate establishment tried to bankrupt him by organizing an advertising boycott. But Musk persisted, succeeded, and (on his own terms) thrived. All credit to him for opening up the world’s foremost free speech platform to (nearly) all points of view.
But Musk is a crazy Bond villain archetype. He may change the world, but he will never shape it. Don’t get me wrong; he’s a lot of fun. But he is a revolutionary, not a leader. Sensible, mainstream, powerful people will not follow him down his many rabbit holes.
Enter Mark Zuckerberg. He was once a visionary. Now he’s a businessman. On Tuesday he announced that he would be ending censorship on Facebook. Not only that; he announced that he would be working with Trump (and by implication, with Musk) to overturn censorship efforts worldwide:
Watch the video. This is the most important announcement of the Trump II era (which, like it or not, has already begun). Zuckerberg admits that Facebook previously suppressed free expression. He admits that his own fact checkers have been “politically biased.” He admits that “mistakes account for the vast majority of censorship” on his platforms. He admits that “what started as a movement to be more inclusive has increasingly been used to shut down opinions shut out people with different ideas.” It’s all very MAGA, and opponents of wokism will be thrilled to hear it. He’s even decided to move his content review teams from California and Texas.
But that’s not the important part.
The important part starts at timestamp 3:51, right at the end. That’s where he says:
Finally, we’re going to work with President Trump to push back on governments around the world going after American companies and pushing to censor more.
The U.S. has the strongest constitutional protections for free expression in the world. Europe has an ever increasing number of laws institutionalizing censorship and making it difficult to build anything innovative there. Latin American countries have secret courts that can order companies to quietly take things down. China has censored our apps from even working in the country.
The only way that we can push back on this global trend is with the support of the U.S. government. And that’s why it’s been so difficult over the past four years, when even the U.S. government has pushed for censorship. By going after us and other American companies, it has emboldened other governments to go even further.
But now we have the opportunity to restore free expression and I am excited to take it.
He might as well have added Australia to the list.
Contrary to the claims of the global intelligentsia, freedom of speech is not a universal value. And contrary to the beliefs of most conservatives, it is not a Western value. It is an American value. But as Lafayette recognized more than 200 years ago, the very existence of the United States as “the land of the free” creates pressure on other countries to follow suit. In the nineteenth century, people simply left more repressive countries to start new lives in America. In the twentieth century, the United States forced Europeans to accept basic freedoms, or forgo American protection. And in the twenty-first century, America provided an online space where anyone could speak freely, regardless of their own countries’ efforts to stop them.
Zuckerberg is absolutely right: if the U.S. government can censor, no one else anywhere will be able to speak freely.
And he’s right to be excited about his new alliance with Donald Trump (and implicitly with Elon Musk). When it comes to seeking U.S. support to resolve his regulatory problems in the European Union, Brazil, and indeed Australia, Zuckerberg is certainly not motivated strictly by altruism. Facebook, Twitter, and Google (sorry: Meta, X, and Alphabet) are American corporate champions, and there’s nothing Trump likes better than to see American corporate champions making money abroad. But whatever the mixture of his motives, the result of his decision to embrace free speech is that hundreds of millions of people inside and outside the U.S. will enjoy freer speech.
Forget about acquiring Greenland, occupying the Panama Canal, or making Canada the 51st state. The apparent agreement among Trump, Musk, and now Zuckerberg to leverage American influence in the interest of American internet giants (and incidentally: the interest of freedom) is world-changing. It means that Canadians won’t have to give up their country to gain freedom of speech. Now they’ll be able to just go online. Liberty has found its asylum. It’s just that no one ever thought it would be Facebook.
I reactivated my Twitter profile when Elon Musk took over. Find me back on Facebook now at: https://www.facebook.com/SalvatoreBabones. And feel free to comment however you like.
The Salvatore Babones Newsletter will return.
and (on his own terms) thrived. All credit to him for opening up the world’s foremost free speech platform to (nearly) all points of view.
But Musk is a crazy Bond villain archetype. He may change the world, but he will never shape it. Don’t get me wrong; he’s a lot of fun. But he is a revolutionary, not a leader. Sensible, mainstream, powerful people will not follow him down his many rabbit holes.
Enter Mark Zuckerberg. He was once a visionary. Now he’s a businessman. On Tuesday he announced that he would be ending censorship on Facebook. Not only that; he announced that he would be working with Trump (and by implication, with Musk) to overturn censorship efforts worldwide:
Watch the video. This is the most important announcement of the Trump II era (which, like it or not, has already begun). Zuckerberg admits that Facebook previously suppressed free expression. He admits that his own fact checkers have been “politically biased.” He admits that “mistakes account for the vast majority of censorship” on his platforms. He admits that “what started as a movement to be more inclusive has increasingly been used to shut down opinions shut out people with different ideas.” It’s all very MAGA, and opponents of wokism will be thrilled to hear it. He’s even decided to move his content review teams from California and Texas.
But that’s not the important part.
The important part starts at timestamp 3:51, right at the end. That’s where he says:
Finally, we’re going to work with President Trump to push back on governments around the world going after American companies and pushing to censor more.
The U.S. has the strongest constitutional protections for free expression in the world. Europe has an ever increasing number of laws institutionalizing censorship and making it difficult to build anything innovative there. Latin American countries have secret courts that can order companies to quietly take things down. China has censored our apps from even working in the country.
The only way that we can push back on this global trend is with the support of the U.S. government. And that’s why it’s been so difficult over the past four years, when even the U.S. government has pushed for censorship. By going after us and other American companies, it has emboldened other governments to go even further.
But now we have the opportunity to restore free expression and I am excited to take it.
He might as well have added Australia to the list.
Contrary to the claims of the global intelligentsia, freedom of speech is not a universal value. And contrary to the beliefs of most conservatives, it is not a Western value. It is an American value. But as Lafayette recognized more than 200 years ago, the very existence of the United States as “the land of the free” creates pressure on other countries to follow suit. In the nineteenth century, people simply left more repressive countries to start new lives in America. In the twentieth century, the United States forced Europeans to accept basic freedoms, or forgo American protection. And in the twenty-first century, America provided an online space where anyone could speak freely, regardless of their own countries’ efforts to stop them.
Zuckerberg is absolutely right: if the U.S. government can censor, no one else anywhere will be able to speak freely.
And he’s right to be excited about his new alliance with Donald Trump (and implicitly with Elon Musk). When it comes to seeking U.S. support to resolve his regulatory problems in the European Union, Brazil, and indeed Australia, Zuckerberg is certainly not motivated strictly by altruism. Facebook, Twitter, and Google (sorry: Meta, X, and Alphabet) are American corporate champions, and there’s nothing Trump likes better than to see American corporate champions making money abroad. But whatever the mixture of his motives, the result of his decision to embrace free speech is that hundreds of millions of people inside and outside the U.S. will enjoy freer speech.
Forget about acquiring Greenland, occupying the Panama Canal, or making Canada the 51st state. The apparent agreement among Trump, Musk, and now Zuckerberg to leverage American influence in the interest of American internet giants (and incidentally: the interest of freedom) is world-changing. It means that Canadians won’t have to give up their country to gain freedom of speech. Now they’ll be able to just go online. Liberty has found its asylum. It’s just that no one ever thought it would be Facebook.
I reactivated my Twitter profile when Elon Musk took over. Find me back on Facebook now at: https://www.facebook.com/SalvatoreBabones. And feel free to comment however you like.
The Salvatore Babones Newsletter will return.