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.
Meta can be a gamechanger for free speech
For many, the Meta culpa seemed strained and opportunistic. However, I had the opportunity to have in-depth discussions with Chief Global Affairs Officer Joel Kaplan about these plans. I was impressed and I wrote that, despite the bad blood with the company, the free speech community should give Meta a chance to prove that it was serious about restoring free speech protections.
As I stated in my column, we need Meta. Musk changed the trajectory of the fight for free speech, but the difference between the two companies is impossible to ignore. X reports that it has roughly 600 million users. Facebook remains the largest social media company, with more than 3 billion users.
For free speech defenders, it is the difference between England’s entry into World War II and the United States’ entry. Musk slowed the progress of the anti-free speech movement. Zuckerberg could reverse the direction.
Recently, Kaplan and I reviewed the progress at Meta. He was remarkably transparent and candid about their efforts, and what I learned was heartening.
The chief global affairs officer stated that “we are allowing more speech,” but the company has not seen an explosion of hate speech as a result of greater tolerance for opposing views. He admitted that “content was being taken down that should not have been taken down. We reduced over-enforcement.”
“We reduced the number of false positives by more than 50% without an explosion of prevalence,” Kaplan said. “We track how many times our classifiers ‘get it wrong’ through labeling and human review.”
What he found was that “we had this blunt approach to reduce civic content in their feeds on Facebook and Instagram. We removed those and started treating political content like other content. We fundamentally changed how we treat content.”
Facebook is relying more on community notes rather than removal of postings, much like X. The company now has a massive number of community note contributors and a system designed to counter the most biased or strident posters.
The biggest change has resulted from modifying the company’s classifiers, the automated systems used to enforce policies. Meta found that these classifiers were too broad, resulting in excessive content being taken down. It turned off low-precision classifiers, except for illegal and high-severity areas ‒ like terrorism, child sexual exploitation, drugs, fraud and scams.
At the same time, Meta has implemented greater monitoring to track “false positives.” It was able to reduce the number of false positives by more than half without any significant increase in violating content. Now, in its integrity report for the second quarter, Meta shows that it has achieved an even more impressive mark in reducing over-enforcement, cutting enforcement mistakes in the United States by more than 75% every week.
The experience at Meta seems to confirm what some of us have long argued. Yielding to those who demand censorship only produces an insatiable appetite for more speech curtailment. It fuels a class of speech phobes, who spend more time trying to silence others than speaking their own voices.
Meta experienced this same snowballing of censorship. Notably, when the company moved to restore greater free speech protection, it did not experience a comparative rise in violative speech.
European Union poses biggest challenge to free speech
The greatest challenge, however, still lies ahead for the company. The European Union remains the greatest threat to free speech facing Americans. After Musk purchased X with a pledge to restore free speech, figures like former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton demanded that the EU use its infamous Digital Services Act to force X to censor Americans.
The EU has threatened Musk with confiscatory fines that could surpass $1 billion, according to The New York Times.
Meta is clearly trying to find an accommodation with the EU, which may still object to its move to rely on community notes rather than direct censorship. The EU could also object to the reduction of broad classifiers in allowing a greater scope of discussion and dissent.
However, with the Trump administration warning the EU about its efforts to censor Americans, Meta could help recreate a formidable alliance for free speech. For the first time, the free speech community might have a coalition of government and corporate allies that could stand up to the EU.
Hopefully, Meta will expand its notification to citizens in EU countries that they are being denied access to information due to “geoblocking” pursuant to EU censorship regulations. With a united front in the United States for free speech, we can serve as a bastion for those who value this human right.
That is why I have created a Facebook account (jonathanturleyUSA). No doubt, it was the moment that Zuckerberg had long dreamed of.
However, it’s possible that he truly wants to restore free speech in social media. What is clear is that he is already drawing the ire of the anti-free speech movement, which previously unleashed an unrelenting campaign against Musk and his businesses.
The free speech community needs to support Meta. That does not mean that we are chumps. We have often found false friends in both government and corporations.
If Meta stays on this course, we could finally have a coalition of the willing to fight for free speech on a global scale.
Call it a leap of faith in Facebook with our eyes wide open.
Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University. He is the author of the bestselling book “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage.”
Why should any of the Big Four change? When the next admin comes in it will be “Yesser, nosser, three bags full sir!”. They are going to do what they have to do get the money the government can give to anyone else.
I cannot return to Facebook because I was permanently locked out of my page in January 2023, no reason given. I believe that Mark Zuckerberg is just talking the talk on free speech and will never walk the walk. At the time I was permanently banished, it really didn’t matter. I had spent so much time in wokebook’s gulag and being the victim of the shadowban that my page activity was practically reduced to ZERO anyway.
I’m not a radical, just an old lady (76) was opposes wars, supported Ron Paul and refused the COVID jabs! Facebook is still loaded with woke censors and Zuckerberg won’t fire them.
Me too. March 13 of this year. Like Professor Turley, I am a lawyer so I even Fed Expressed a letter to their General Counsel’s office respectfully asking for an explanation in the vain hope that professional courtesy might eventually get me one. Crickets. Zuckerberg is either a lying fraud conning people like Professor Turley and prominent Republican politicians or he has no idea what is happening in his own company.
I am routinely censored by Facebook. Happened again this morning. Zuckerberg a free speech advocate? Jonathan Turley, you’ve been played.
You obviously did not watch the Congressional hearings regarding Meta’s willful distortion and obfuscation of the data showing how harmful their platforms are – especially the VR products. The researcher/whistleblowers laid out a solid case for serious regulation of this company, not applauding it. Zuckerberg is a chameleon who goes with the wind, even as he lies to our faces. You are being played, sir. I thought you were smarter than this, but I guess I will have to re-examine my opinion of your accumen.
I will hold my breath. I am a bit more sarcastic than the good professor because I do not for one believe Facebook is going to change and become a beacon for free speech. They sold their soul as far as I am concerned and now have a new master. That will last until they have another left leaning master and will switch back.
I do agree with the good professor that Facebook can be bastion with both their size and other same size allies. Yet, I am not so sure this is permanent.
One can only hope.
Even with $200 Billion; It’s a competition with Jeff Z and other competitive people… they would sell their souls (and Jeff Z DID SELL HIS in the 2020 election), to “WIN”… legislation and politicians’ actions do not affect people who raise money for the Democrat party….
FB is still run by the same people and 90% of the people there are indoctrinated into the Religion of Politics… You cannot talk to that person when the topic is in any way political. Theri EGO will block that speech from threatening what they think what makes their identity Academically enlightened and Morally Elevated.
We must always remain watchful but seeing a change from censorship to free speech is a sign of things moving in the right direction. For now the control freaks are being kept at bay. Through the diligence of people like Professor Turley and Charlie Kirk the Democratic socialist agenda has been exposed and the nation is listening. Good men are standing up.
This article argues against the Constitution. Websites represent the very right to private property conferred by the Constitution. As is the case with all private property, only the owner has the power to “claim and exercise” dominion. In this type of case, the right to private property trumps the freedom of speech. Only the owners of sites may decide to allow, deny, or censor posts and comments.
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“[Private property is] that dominion which one man claims and exercises over the external things of the world, in exclusion of every other individual.”
– James Madison
We have the right of free speech, but there may be consequences. WSJ ran an article today:
Workers Are Getting Fired Over Posts Mocking Charlie Kirk’s Death
Campaigns to alert employers to contentious posts are posing new challenges for bosses; ‘This is very different’ from past political controversies at work
For workers, the quick firings are the latest reminder that business leaders have waning tolerance for disruptive political speech. Private-sector employees aren’t legally protected from repercussions for words or actions even if it happens outside the workplace, legal experts say.
Even Perkins Coie fired employees who posted against the firm’s values!
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Nice that Zuck has a better attitude but I’ve never had an account at FB and doubt that I ever will. Maybe if FB has to divest WhatsApp, I would consider that. I agree with the poster who said that he’ll likely change his current policy the next time a Dem is elected. Not trustworthy.
I believe it when I see it. I remember when the Twitter CEO said he was in the “Free Speech wing of the Free Speech party”, but we all know how twitter actually worked. It’s not even that these people are necessarily lying. It’s that, “Well, there are exceptions for threats and harassment” (which is expected), but the leftists that they’ve hired to actually carry out the work use that as an excuse to censor their political opponents, while running back to the free speech declaration to prevent their own side from getting censored.
Respectfully Jonathan, I think you are being played.
“The biggest change has resulted from modifying the company’s classifiers”.
If that is true, how did all things hateful from Leftists almost always avoid censorship the past many years?
It doesn’t pass the smell test.
Congratulations, Mr. Turley. You have played a huge roll.
Role*
Great. Meta has realized that censorship doesn’t help their bottom line. It may even interfere with their conscious promotion of addiction to their product, especially targeted at children. Meta, Google, Tiktok and the rest of them remain corporations whose pursuit of profit requires deliberate distortion and interference with emotional and intellectual growth of human beings, who, addicted to their screens do not know the real world from their fantasies. No thanks. It remains a difficult task to address their behavior without sliding into the swamp of curtailing first amendment rights, but we still need to be attentive.
I havenot used Facebook in a decade. Until it improves its site’s security and users’ accounts aren’t hacked, it doesn’t matter what free speech protections are restored.