During the depths of Minnesota's pandemic lockdowns in 2020, future Hot Air superstar David Strom ran a Facebook group that was dedicated to reopening Minnesota. I wrote some content for it, because I wanted to, well, re-open MInnesota, which at the time was in the throes of one of the less enlightened lockdown regimes in the country; churches were limited to 10 people in the sanctuary while bars were limited to 50, no matter how large or small either were. Small businesses were closed or grossly curtailed, while big box stores carried on (and got rich). Perhaps worst of all, healthcare facilities were forced to close; cancer patients were going months without visiting their oncologists. Some never made it back to the doctor.
Bear in mind - the goal was re-opening Minnesota. Not riots in the streets (they happened without us). Not overthrowing the government. Just making the case to re-open Minnesota.
After a few months of harassment, the site just...poof...disappeared. Like it, and its hundreds of pieces of content, and thousands of members, had never existed.
Of course, the extent of Big Tech's collusion with the Deep State to censor dissent - or "stop misinformation", in the Orwellian parlance of today's Left - has become fairly common knowledge. And while it's not that I needed much reason not to vote for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz, their commitment to doubling down on that kind of censorship
This past election saw some of Big Tech vow to clean up their act. And another shoe is about to drop:
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 & removing penalties. In place of fact checks, the first Community Notes will start…
— Joel Kaplan (@joel_kaplan) April 4, 2025
The policies that silenced so many of us will be stuffed down the commode of history, hopefully for good:
Meta announced broad changes to the company’s content moderation policies in January, including the elimination of its third-party fact-checking program in favor of a community-based program like X’s Community Notes.
“We’re going to get back to our roots and focus on reducing mistakes, simplifying our policies and restoring free expression on our platforms,” Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said at the time.
The announcement came just weeks before President Trump took office. Zuckerberg appeared keen to repair his relationship with the incoming president, after incurring Trump’s ire for banning him from Meta platforms in the wake of the Jan. 6, 2021, riots.
Not everyone was happy about the decision:
Nicole Gill, executive director of Accountable Tech, said in a statement that the decision was “a gift to Donald Trump and extremists around the world.” Meta, she cautioned, was inviting “the exact same surge of hate, disinformation and conspiracy theories” that fueled the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.
"Accountable Tech" is a left-aligned group that advocates restrictions on online free speech. Make of that what you will.
At any rate, it's the end of an era. A noxious, authoritarian era.
It's going to be our job to keep it that way.
