My good friend Robert Stacy McCain has frequently written, “I watch CNN” or sometimes MSNBC, “so you don’t have to.” Well, I created an account and check Bluesky, the liberal version of Twitter, so that you don’t have to. And checking this morning I found the very lovely Amanda Marcotte complaining that Mark Zuckerberg, the creator and owner of Facebook, is no longer going to apply liberally-oriented ‘fact checkers’ to posts on Facebook.
Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta makeover: MAGA grandpa is about to get much worse
Facebook ditches its fact-checking program in favor of Elon Musk’s army of disinformation zombies
by Amanda Marcotte | Wednesday, January 8, 2025 | 8:00 AM EST
In part because of his goofy appearance and in part because he doesn’t engage in fascist trolling like fellow billionaire Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg is rarely seen as a sinister character in modern American life. But Zuckerberg’s announcement that Facebook and Instagram will soon cease fact-checking is such a stellar model of villainous doublespeak that George Orwell would have thought it was a bit much. Zuckerberg insisted it’s in the name of “free speech” that he must unleash uncontrolled disinformation on his platform, adding, “The recent elections also feel like a cultural tipping point towards, once again, prioritizing speech.”
LOL! Hyperbole much? “A stellar model of villainous doublespeak”? “He must unleash uncontrolled disinformation”?
Of course, referring to Mr Zuckerberg’s “goofy appearance” would have been a violation of Facebook’s former Hateful Conduct Policy, which banned “Generalizations that state inferiority in the following ways: Insults, including those about physical appearance, including but not limited to ugly, hideous”. 🙂
Miss Marcotte was aghast that Elon Musk bought Twitter, and her ‘solution’ to that ‘problem’ was to have it taken over by the government, cheering on regulation of social media by the government. She was hardly the only one, as The Philadelphia Inquirer’s hard-left columnist, Will Bunch, suggested that Twitter “should exist more as a semi-public utility than as an entity that a man with a spare $44 billion can just light on fire.”
At one point, that I can no longer document because her old site Pandagon has disappeared into the ether, Miss Marcotte called for the government to pay journalists, to keep newspapers afloat. I’m wondering if she feels the same way now, now that the federal government will be controlled by incoming President Donald Trump. Will the left who whined so much when President Biden’s plan to create a Ministry of Truth “Disinformation Governance Board” in the Department of Fatherland Homeland Security failed still want the government to have authority to regulate speech and ‘disinformation’?
Yep, he is saying Donald Trump is a “free speech” champion, saying the company plans to “work with President Trump” in what sounds very much like bullying countries that have more stringent laws banning false information and hate speech. Of course, Trump is a stalwart enemy of free speech and the First Amendment. Trump has repeatedly threatened to imprison journalists or use government power to shut down news organizations that publish unflattering information about him. The president-elect routinely uses baseless defamation lawsuits to punish journalists for reporting his actions. He has repeatedly called for throwing people in prison for criticizing right-wing judges. But, as the Atlantic’s Adam Serwer said on Bluesky, the right’s definition of “free speech” is “conservatives being able to say nasty things about people without those people being able to respond.”
Given that my Twitter feed is filled with both pro-Israel and pro-Hamas posts, it sure doesn’t seem as though much is being censored by evil reich-wing conservatives! And Miss Marcotte, infected as she has been with #TrumpDerangementSyndrome, hasn’t been thrown in jail herself, but, then again, there are still twelve more days before Mr Trump becomes President again.
We have previously noted that pre-Musk Twitter, and the left in general, do not like Freedom of Speech. When it comes to the subject of transgenderism, Twitter had already banned ‘deadnaming’ and ‘misgendering.’[1]‘Deadnaming’ means referring to a ‘transgender’ person by his given name at birth, rather than the name he has taken to match the sex he claims to be; … Continue reading The New York Times, which so strongly defended its right to Freedom of Speech and of the Press in New York Times Co v United States, 403 U.S. 713 (1971), gave space in the OpEd section to Andrew Marantz to write “Free Speech is killing us. Noxious language online is causing real-world violence.” Mr Marantz, while exercising his First Amendment rights, clearly does not like the unregulated speech of others. The Times had earlier given OpEd page space to ‘transgender’ activist Chad Malloy to claim that Twitter’s ban on ‘deadnamimg’ and ‘misgendering’ actually promotes the Freedom of Speech.[2]Chad Malloy is a male who claims to be female, using the name Parker Marie Malloy. The First Street Journal’s Stylebook notes that we always refer to the ‘transgendered’ by their … Continue reading
This is what Miss Marcotte wants, a system of politically liberal “fact checkers” to censor Facebook.
But even on those rare occasions when the facts get attached to a false post, it may not matter. As disinformation expert Jared Holt noted on Bluesky, “fact-checking ultimately does very little to curb the spread of false information online.” What matters instead, he said, is algorithms that favor good information over bad. If anything, community notes may end up spreading disinformation wider. When people are arguing over the content of a post, as community notes encourage, that boosts its engagement — and therefore pushes the disinformation in front of even more eyeballs than if people were just ignoring it. Meta is “consciously going to let more toxicity through the floodgates,” Holt added.
I will admit to some amusement when anyone is referred to as a “disinformation expert.”
Zuckerberg isn’t plugged into such investments, though his announcement video did suggest one reason he’s buttering Trump up like this: he wants the U.S. government to penalize foreign nations that have cracked down on Facebook disinformation. Considering that the free flow of lies on the platform has led to countless deaths from everything from vaccine refusal to genocide, Zuckerberg’s urge here feels less about “free speech” and more about avoiding the consequences of vile behavior.
We already know that Miss Marcotte wanted to impose mask mandates and vaccine mandates, including firing people who refused to get vaccinated against COVID-19, all because she didn’t want to have to wear a mask at her spin class. Miss Marcotte doesn’t have a lot of support for people’s right to privacy, freedom of choice on anything other than abortion and contraception, or our right to keep and bear arms.
Sure, Miss Marcotte is kind of a favorite whipping girl of mine, because she just makes it so easy. But she has an audience, an audience of people who largely agree with her, and what Miss Marcotte wants is what a lot of our friends on the left want: a very orderly society, with them setting the order.
References
| ↑1 | ‘Deadnaming’ means referring to a ‘transgender’ person by his given name at birth, rather than the name he has taken to match the sex he claims to be; ‘misgendering’ means referring to a ‘transgender’ person by sex-specific terms referring to his biological sex rather than the sex he claims to be. |
|---|---|
| ↑2 | Chad Malloy is a male who claims to be female, using the name Parker Marie Malloy. The First Street Journal’s Stylebook notes that we always refer to the ‘transgendered’ by their birth names and biological sex. The linked Wikipedia biographical article on Mr Malloy was deleted at 7:09 PM EST on December 14, 2024 by Wikipedia User OwenX. I have retained the link in this footnote so that you can see from where I got my original source. A screen capture of the notice can be seen here. |
The level of projection and transference exhibited by the left absolutely amazes me.
“as the Atlantic’s Adam Serwer said on Bluesky, the right’s definition of ‘free speech’ is ‘conservatives being able to say nasty things about people without those people being able to respond.'”
Which is the exact opposite of reality. If he’d swapped “right’s” and “conservatives” with “left’s” and “progressives” he’d have been 100 percent correct.
Not a single leftist has left twitter for the alternative because they weren’t permitted to speak or respond. The leftists are leaving twitter specifically because the right is allowed to speak and respond.
The left is no longer permitted to “say nasty things” about conservatives without the conservatives being able to respond, so they left.
And, notably, the few right wing entities who’ve openly created Bluesky accounts and posted there, were suspended immediately…some within minutes.
The left accuses the right of intending to do the very things that they are actively engaged in…and they do it with a perfectly straight face as if their complete inversion of reality is legitimate.
“‘fact-checking ultimately does very little to curb the spread of false information online.’ What matters instead, he said, is algorithms that favor good information over bad. If anything, community notes may end up spreading disinformation wider. When people are arguing over the content of a post, as community notes encourage, that boosts its engagement”
They hate free and open debate because it draws attention to the fact that there are alternative viewpoints and people might be led to question the narrative. That can’t happen. They’d much prefer to be allowed to silence any opposition so their preferred narrative is the only one permitted.
And somehow, in some bizarro world, suppressing dissent and discussion is promoting free speech.
These people are flat out nuts. Or they just think everyone else is too stupid to understand what they’re saying. Either way, it boggles my mind.