by Jorge Gomez • 3 minutes
Social media giant Meta is making a big change that should benefit religious liberty and freedom of expression online.
The company announced earlier this week that it will end its controversial third-party “fact-checking” program and promised to move toward policies more focused on free speech. Meta plans to replace fact-checking with a “Community Notes” model similar to the one used on X.
“It’s time to get back to our roots around free expression on Facebook and Instagram,” Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a video on Tuesday. “What started as a movement to be more inclusive has increasingly been used to shut down opinions and shut out people with different ideas.”
“Government and legacy media have pushed to censor more and more” and “a lot of this is clearly political,” Zuckerberg added. “Fact checkers have just been too politically biased, and have destroyed more trust than they created, especially in the U.S.”
Meta operates Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and a several other social platforms. The company launched the “fact-checking” program in 2016 as part of an effort to crack down on “misinformation.” It did so largely in response to criticism over Facebook’s role in spreading false claims during the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
Shortly after the announcement, Meta revised its “hateful conduct” policies, removing references to fighting “hate speech” on Facebook, Instagram and Threads from its “hateful conduct” webpage. Zuckerberg also said Meta’s trust and safety and content moderation teams will also be moving out of California to Texas, “where there’s less concern about the bias of our teams.”
Bias against religious viewpoints in the digital space has been a serious problem for many years. Big Tech has specifically targeted conservative users and religious messages for censorship, selectively invoking vague policies against “hate” and “misinformation” to stunt the free flow of information.
Religious Americans are often the ones who pay the price by being censored because Big Tech companies disagree with their beliefs. Faith-based organizations and individuals routinely have their content removed or shadow banned when Big Tech decides to stop showing posts to other users. Some groups even had their accounts deactivated. Much of this censorship was carried at the behest of “fact-checkers” who claimed they were trying to “stopping the spread of misinformation.”
Leaders and experts around the country echo the sentiment that Meta’s change is a positive move.
“Honestly, I think they’ve come a long way—Meta, Facebook, I think they’ve come a long way,” President Trump said in response to Meta’s announcement.
“Meta finally admits to censoring speech. What a huge win for free speech,” Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky posted on X.
“Today is a huge step in the right direction,” said Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, a member of the House Judiciary Committee that conducted an investigation into Facebook’s censorship practices. “Social media, AI and other technology companies must resist governments’ censorship pressure and instead work to ensure the open expression of ideas on their platforms.”
“This is enormous. Facebook has absolutely crushed conservative media on their platform over the course of the last several years,” wrote Ben Shapiro of The Daily Wire. “Now, Mark Zuckerberg is reversing all of that.”
“This is an epic indictment of all the forces of censorship in America,” explains Greg Klipper at The Daily Caller. “Zuckerberg was their guy. He had forsaken his earlier commitment to free expression to become the enforcement arm of the government’s unofficial ‘disinformation’ bureau. Now that he’s turned, there’s no more credible person to reveal who these nefarious actors really are. He pulled back the veil in under five minutes.”
“If Zuckerberg means even half of what he says in it, we may well be seeing a genuine shift in how Silicon Valley regards free speech, dissent, and pluralism,” according to Charles Cooke at National Review.
While there’s cause for optimism, other experts were skeptical and said it’s better to remain vigilant until Meta follows through on its word.
“Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me,” Sen. Mike Lee of Utah posted on X. “Can any of us assume Zuckerberg won’t return to his old tricks?”
“Many conservatives seem tickled at the thought of the second coming of Elon, savior of free speech. But color me more skeptical and enraged,” wrote Kylee Griswold at The Federalist.
“If Meta follows through on its promises, the country will undoubtedly benefit,” added Griswold. “But censoring the free press and free speech of everyday Americans wasn’t a victimless crime, and its perpetrators don’t just get to throw the injured party a ‘my B!’ and carry on with their business while we pick up the pieces of the republic.”
“Reasonable observers will debate the purity of Zuckerberg’s motivations,” explain the editors at National Review. “All told, Zuckerberg’s move ought to be seen as a reaction to change within Silicon Valley rather than as a leading indicator.”
Leading the Fight to Protect Religious Freedom Online
First Liberty is at the forefront of the legal fight to ensure religious voices are treated equally online. And we will continue to defend and fight so that Americans of all faiths can freely live out and express their faith.
Last year, First Liberty filed a friend-of-the-court brief at the U.S. Supreme Court in two consolidated cases: NetChoice, LLC v. Moody and NetChoice, LLC v. Paxton. In these cases, Texas and Florida were asking for social media companies to be transparent about their content standards and to apply them fairly for all users.
We filed our brief on behalf of the Babylon Bee, a satire site, as well as its sibling, Not the Bee, a Christian news website. Both sites were negatively impacted by online censorship. The Babylon Bee was censored and shadow banned which in turn hampered web traffic to Not the Bee. We argued that accountability is badly needed, because social media giants targeted conservative users and religious messages for censorship,
The Supreme Court ruled that Texas and Florida social media transparency laws needed further review. It sent the cases back to the lower courts to reconsider the constitutional questions. For media companies like the Babylon Bee, the decision gave them another opportunity to make sure Big Tech doesn’t ban their content.
We also successfully represented houses of worship who were singled out by Big Tech. Streaming platform Hulu rejected an ad from Hulen Street Church in Fort Worth, Texas that promoted its Thursday night services. The company quickly reversed course and approved the ad. We helped Cottonwood Creek Church after Facebook shut down the church’s advertisement account. After our attorneys stepped in, the company did the right thing and agreed to get the account back up and running.
Social media is highly influential. It offers a platform for billions of people to communicate their thoughts, serving as the modern-day public square. This is where people dialogue, share their views, and get a significant amount of their information.
A vibrant public discourse cannot flourish if social media networks claim to be “neutral” or an “open forum,” and yet turn around and censor content that they disagree with or dislike.
Getting rid of a policy that stifled so many religious voices is a good first step. Of course, there’s still a lot that must be done—and perhaps many cases to be fought in court—to ensure Americans with traditional and religious beliefs are treated fairly in today’s public square.
Still, we can’t miss the cultural significance of what just happened. One of the most powerful tech companies is moving back toward the ideal that, in America, we combat bad ideas by exposing them to the light, not to letting them fester in the shadows. The best answer to speech that we find hateful or offensive is more speech, not less. That’s what freedom of expression and religious liberty are all about.
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