Tag: mark zuckerberg

Yes, Mark Zuckerberg, You Can Shout ‘Fire’ in a Crowded Theater

Mark Zuckerberg has joined a dubious list of prominent Americans—including judges, members of Congress, and even a vice presidential nominee—who believe that you can’t yell “fire” in a crowded theater. In an interview with Joe Rogan last week, the Meta CEO attempted to justify the company’s pandemic-era censorship policies by arguing that “even people who are like the most ardent First Amendment defenders” know that there is a limit to free speech. 

“At the beginning, [COVID-19 was] a legitimate public health crisis,” Zuckerberg told Rogan. “The Supreme Court has this clear precedent: It’s like, all right, you can’t yell ‘fire’ in a crowded theater. There are times when if there’s an emergency, your ability to speak can temporarily be curtailed in order to get an emergency under control. I was sympathetic to that at the beginning of COVID.”

The thing is, Zuckerberg is simply wrong when it comes to how the First Amendment works.

The common misconception that it’s illegal to shout “fire” in a crowded theater originates with a hypothetical used by Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes in the 1919 Supreme Court case Schenck v. United States.

In his opinion, Holmes wrote that “the character of every act depends upon the circumstances in which it is done,” adding that “the most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theatre and causing a panic.” Not only was this passage a pure hypothetical used to illustrate Holmes’ larger opinion that the First Amendment didn’t protect the dissemination of anti-draft pamphlets, but Schenck itself was overturned in 1969 by Brandenburg v. Ohio.

“To the contrary, if the theater is on fire, you not only may shout ‘FIRE,’ but indeed, you should do so! The constant misstatement of this famous line from a 1919 Supreme Court decision is significant, because it overlooks the critical, common-sense distinction between protected and unprotected speech,” former American Civil Liberties Union President Nadine Strossen said in 2021. “This old canard, a favorite reference of censorship apologists, needs to be retired. It’s repeatedly and inappropriately used to justify speech limitations. People have been using this cliché as if it had some legal meaning, while First Amendment lawyers roll their eyes”

Zuckerberg’s interview came in the wake of a January 7 announcement that Meta platforms would no longer use third-party fact-checkers to label and restrict content, as well as loosen restrictions on some subjects “that are part of mainstream discourse.” 

“After [Donald] Trump first got elected in 2016, the legacy media wrote nonstop about how misinformation was a threat to democracy,” Zuckerberg said in a video announcing the change. “We tried in good faith to address those concerns without becoming the arbiters of truth. But the fact-checkers have just been too politically biased and have destroyed more trust than they’ve created, especially in the U.S.”

While this change is a welcome shift from Meta’s previous content-moderation regime, that Zuckerberg is still getting this basic element of the First Amendment wrong hardly bodes well for Meta’s future as a platform friendly to free expression.

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Rogan Torches Zuckerberg To His Face Over COVID Vaccines

While Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg is going out of his way to frame himself as having gone through some sort of MAGA awakening, a section of his appearance on Joe Rogan’s podcast this past weekend has many believing its all an act.

Zuckerberg spoke at length about regretting bowing to censorship requests from Biden Administration officials, who he claimed would “scream” and “curse” at Meta employees to remove accurate information from its platforms.

As we highlighted last week, Zuckerberg has also ditched so called ‘fact checkers’ in favour of an X-like community notes system, sending the establishment censorship industry into a panic.

Yet, when Zuckerberg’s conversation with Rogan turned to COVID vaccines, he reverted to his old self again.

Zuckerberg claimed that while he disagrees with the methods the Biden regime used to push mass vaccination, it was all for the greater good.

“I think…they (the Biden regime) were doing something. Their goal to get everyone vaccinated was actually a good goal,” he declared.

Rogan wasn’t having it.

“Yeah, it was a good goal if it worked…if it really did prevent people from getting COVID, from infecting others,” Rogan responded, emphasising that “it didn’t, so it wasn’t a good deal.”

Zuckerberg responded, “Still, on balance, I still think it’s good for more people to get the vaccine.”

“I’m not sure in that case how much of it was like a personal political gain that they were going for. I think that they had a kind of goal that they thought was in the interests of the country,” Zuckerberg continued.

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We can’t let Mark Zuckerberg pass the buck on Meta’s censorship

No, Mark Zuckerberg doesn’t get to go on Joe Rogan’s podcast and pretend he’s a free speech champion as if there were nothing he could have done to stop the censorship at Facebook that rigged the 2020 election and probably cost lives during the pandemic.

The wanksta-lite makeover can’t hide Zuck’s sins, from throttling The Post’s Hunter Biden laptop story before the 2020 election to deplatforming a sitting president, Donald Trump, to suppressing COVID-19 dissent.

No matter how many “Iron Neck” workouts he does in an attempt to de-nerd himself, the billionaire tech titan will always be a spineless coward whose monopoly needs to be broken up. No one person should be wielding historically unprecedented power to censor political thought and speech, least of all a socially inept tech bro.

The Facebook founder whose Meta group behemoth owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp whined to Rogan Friday that “these people from the Biden administration would call up our team, and, like, scream at them, and curse,” to force them to take down posts. Now he tells us.

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Biden Slams Mark Zuckerberg’s ‘Shameful’ Decision to Roll Back Meta’s Censorship Regime – ‘Contrary to Everything America is About’

Joe Biden is clearly unhappy with Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s attempt to repair his relationship with Donald Trump.

The outgoing president said at a press conference on Friday that Zuckerberg’s decision to roll back his platforms’ censorship policies was “really shameful” and against American values.

“It’s just completely contrary to everything America is about,” he said.

“We want to tell the truth. We haven’t always done it as a nation. We want to tell the truth.”

“The idea that, you know, a billionaire can buy something and say, ‘By the way, we’re not gonna fact check anything,’ and you know, you have millions of people reading, going online, reading this stuff,” he continued.

“Anyway, I think it’s really shameful.”

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Mark Zuckerberg Orders Removal of Tampons From Men’s Bathrooms at Meta Offices and Social Media Users Have Humorous Thoughts

Meta and Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg’s red pilling continues unabated, and social media is taking particular note of one significant change he has made.

As TGP readers know, Mark Zuckerberg has done a complete 180 on multiple issues since President Trump destroyed Kamala Harris in the 2024 election. These include getting rid of far-left ‘fact checkers,’ bringing more conservatives into his company, and giving to Trump’s inaugural fund.

But his latest move may be the most decisive of all. The New York Times reported that Zuckerberg made additional changes on Tuesday, including removing the transgender and nonbinary “themes” on its Messenger chat app and getting rid of tampons in the men’s bathrooms at Meta offices.

You read that right. Meta had TAMPONS in the men’s washrooms before Zuckerberg was finally hit by reality.

From the New York Times:

That same day at Meta’s offices in Silicon Valley, Texas and New York, facilities managers were instructed to remove tampons from men’s bathrooms, which the company had provided for nonbinary and transgender employees who use the men’s room and who may have required sanitary pads, two employees said.

Users on X responded to the news with several humorous memes, many targeting Minnesota Governor and failed VP candidate Tim Walz.

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Here’s Everything You Still Can’t Say on “Free Speech” Meta Platforms

Meta’s recent announcement of plans to “restore free expression” on its platforms is accompanied by an extensive list of content restrictions, raising questions about the breadth of speech allowed under the new rules. While CEO Mark Zuckerberg claimed the company is “getting back to its roots” with a focus on open discourse, the detailed policies suggest significant limitations remain.

The updated guidelines categorize prohibited content into two tiers. Tier 1 bans dehumanizing speech, such as comparisons to “animals” or “pathogens,” and stereotypes such as claiming that certain groups control financial, political, or media institutions. Allegations of serious immorality or criminality, such as calling someone a terrorist or pedophile, are also prohibited.

The policy also forbids mocking alleged hate crime victims, using targeted slurs, or expressing harmful wishes, such as hoping someone contracts a disease or experiences a disaster. Even expressions as simple as saying someone “makes me vomit” fall under the banned list when targeting individuals based on protected characteristics.

Tier 2 extends restrictions to statements that support exclusion or segregation, such as denying someone access to spaces, jobs, or social services. Insults based on character, mental capacity, or physical worth are similarly prohibited, though some exceptions are made for gender-based insults in specific contexts, like romantic break-ups.

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Zuckerberg And Bezos To Donate $1 Million Each To Trump’s Inauguration Fund

Tech leaders Mark Zuckerberg and Jeff Bezos of Meta and Amazon are both reportedly giving a million dollars to President Trump’s inauguration fund.

Zuckerberg’s donation comes following a private dinner he had with Trump at his Florida home

The Wall Street Journal reports that the donation is part of an effort by Zuckerberg to ease tensions between him and Trump.

Trump previously threatened to prosecute and jail Zuckerberg and anyone else who interfered in the election by using their tech platforms to censor information in the same vein as the Hunter Biden laptop revelations in 2020. 

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Mark Zuckerberg Apologizes for Biden Administration Censorship, Sending Liberal Elites Into Denial

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg sent a letter last week to the House Judiciary Committee saying he regrets not being more outspoken about “government pressure” from the Biden administration to “censor” COVID-19 content, causing liberal pundits and media outlets who have denied this censorship to panic and deny what Zuckerberg wrote. The Meta CEO also admitted that his company demoted a story critical of Biden’s son—the Hunter Biden laptop scandal—right before the 2020 election.

In 2021, senior officials in the Biden administration, including the White House, repeatedly pressured our teams for months to censor certain COVID-19 content, including humor and satire, and expressed a lot of frustration with our teams when we didn’t agree …. I believe the government pressure was wrong, and I regret that we were not more outspoken about it …. and we’re ready to push back if something like this happens again.

Journalist Kara Swisher began lying about the matter in a CNN interview, alleging that the Supreme Court had found there had been no censorship and that the Biden administration had not pressured Meta. Both claims are false.

In the recent Supreme Court ruling, judges skipped over claims of whether the Biden administration had actually censored Americans, arguing that the plaintiffs did not have standing to sue the White House. Swisher could have learned this by reading an article on the decision in the New York Times, the very publication where she was a contributor.

As for the Biden administration pressure to censor—something that Swisher denies—the evidence of this was made clear from Meta internal communications released by the House Judiciary Committee last May.

Zuckerberg texted three Meta officials—Sheryl Sandberg, Nick Clegg, and Joel Kaplan—on July 16, 2021, “Can we include that the [White House] put pressure on us to censor the lab leak theory?”

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Why Did Zuckerberg Choose Now To Confess?

Consider Mark Zuckerberg’s revelation and its implications for our understanding of the last four years, and what it means for the future.

On many subjects important to public life today, vast numbers of people know the truth, and yet the official channels of information sharing are reluctant to admit it. The Fed admits no fault in inflation and neither do most members of Congress. The food companies don’t admit the harm of the mainstream American diet. The pharmaceutical companies are loath to admit any injury. Media companies deny any bias. So on it goes. 

And yet everyone else does know, already and more and more so.

This is why the admission of Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg was so startling. It’s not what he admitted. We already knew what he revealed. What’s new is that he admitted it. We are simply used to living in a world swimming in lies. It rattles us when a major figure tells us what is true or even partially or slightly true. We almost cannot believe it, and we wonder what the motivation might be. 

In his letter to Congressional investigators, he flat-out said what everyone else has been saying for years now. 

In 2021, senior officials from the Biden Administration, including the White House, repeatedly pressured our teams for months to censor certain COVID-19 content, including humor and satire, and expressed a lot of frustration with our teams when we didn’t agree….I believe the government pressure was wrong, and I regret that we were not more outspoken about it. I also think we made some choices that, with the benefit of hindsight and new information, we wouldn’t make today. Like I said to our teams at the time, I feel strongly that we should not compromise our content standards due to pressure from any Administration in either direction – and we’re ready to push back if something like this happens again.

A few clarifications. The censorship began much earlier than that, from March 2020 at the very least if not earlier. We all experienced it, almost immediately following lockdowns. 

After a few weeks, using that platform to get the word out proved impossible. Facebook once made a mistake and let my piece on Woodstock and the 1969 flu go through but they would never make that mistake again. For the most part, every single opponent of the terrible policies was deplatformed at all levels. 

The implications are far more significant than the bloodless letter of Zuckerberg suggests. People consistently underestimate the power that Facebook has over the public mind. This was especially true in the 2020 and 2022 election cycles. 

The difference in having an article unthrottled much less amplified by Facebook in these years was in the millionfold. When my article went through, I experienced a level of traffic that I had never seen in my career. It was mind-boggling. When the article was shut down some two weeks later – after focused troll accounts alerted Facebook that the algorithms had made a mistake – traffic fell to the usual trickle. 

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Zuckerberg says Biden officials ‘pressured’ Meta to ‘censor’ content: What to know

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg wrote a letter to the House Judiciary Committee saying he regrets not being more outspoken about “government pressure” from the Biden administration to “censor” content on its platforms.

“Like I said to our teams at the time, I feel strongly that we should not compromise our content standards due to pressure from any Administration in either direction,” he wrote in the letter.

Here’s what to know about the claims.

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