Below is my column in USA Today on the restoration of free speech protections at Facebook and Meta. Earlier this year, I wrote a column on the plan at Meta to follow X in the reduction of censorship systems. I stated that the free speech community should give Meta a chance to prove that it was not just restoring free speech, but abandoning its earlier practices. It appears that it has made major strides and some of us are returning to Facebook.
Here is the column:
I created a Facebook account recently.
No one was more surprised than myself. From my book, “The Indispensable Right,” to my past columns, I have been one of the most vocal critics of Facebook and Meta regarding their free speech policies.
From their expansive censorship record to their failure to disclose details on their coordination with the federal government, many in the free speech community saw Meta as the embodiment of the anti-free speech movement growing around the world.
Then something happened. Elon Musk happened. He bought Twitter and dismantled its massive censorship operation. He then turned over what became known as the Twitter Files.
Those files confirmed extensive coordination by the government with academia and social media companies to censor speech, including core political speech.
Eventually, Facebook released its files, and founder Mark Zuckerberg apologized for the censorship that had occurred under the prior system, pledging to restore free speech protections. In doing so, Meta adopted some of the changes Musk made at the newly named X.
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