Zuck ditches “fact checkers", Hollywood and Old Media fret that they are losing relevance in the eyes of the American public
The times they are a'changing
As we have said multiple times in this space Against Crony Capitalism was a victim of out of control “fact checkers” during the pandemic. In March 2021 Facebook essentially killed our reach within the platform simply because we linked to a Nature article that said that masks didn’t do much of anything to stop the spread of Covid. We didn’t even offer any commentary. We just posted a link. But some “fact checker” at some university somewhere in England decided that we had to be shut up.
We now know that Facebook was under great pressure from the Biden administration to censor such content. The administration wanted to manipulate the Covid narrative to the degree it could. It wasn’t afraid to abandon key American principles to do it either. The Nature article fell outside of what was acceptable.
For those who don’t know Nature is about as mainstream and officially blessed as it gets, yet we were still censored. In United States. Where we have the First Amendment.
So we are glad to see that Meta is officially ditching the “fact checkers”.
(From The Hill)
Zuckerberg cited the recent election as a driving force in the company’s decision, slamming “governments and legacy media” as pushing the company to “censor more and more.”
“The recent elections also feel like a cultural tipping point towards, once again, prioritizing speech,” he said. “So we’re going to get back to our roots and focus on reducing mistakes, simplifying our policies and restoring free expression on our platforms.”
Good. This is legitimate progress. The election was a cultural tipping point. We recently called it a “semi-revolution”. Times are changing quickly.
This change is everywhere but is perhaps most obvious in the old media (news and entertainment). The Hollywood finger wagging of the past eight years is suddenly absent. So too has wokism largely evaporated. The American people sent a clear message and that was that they wanted serious change. Not Obama “change” but actual, real change.
To be clear Trump is only part of this change, an extremely important part, but he’s not the reason for it. The semi-revolution we see emerging broadly now has its roots, though it was a very different phenomenon, in the Ron Paul Revolution, which partially gave birth to the TEA Party, which in turn sort of enabled Occupy. (I know, but it’s true. Read my book.) Then there was Brexit. (Which sent a shudder through the post WWII establishment). Then Trump was elected the first time. (Which rocked the post WWII establishment at its foundations.) The current upheaval has been a long time coming and reflects deep public sentiment that has long existed.
For many of us the recent adjustment in the zeitgeist is a breath of fresh air. For others however it is not that. The old news media and their enablers for instance are having trouble adjusting. From The Washington Post to MSNBC to what is left of other newsrooms in the old media constelation there is gnashing of teeth. The world that had been for so long, so long dominated by a certain mindset, has moved under the feet of these institutions. They don’t know what to do and they are hemorrhaging viewers and readers.
There was a time when Walter Cronkite looked America dead in the eye and finished his nightly newscast (which people watched) with the tag “And that’s the way it is…” He, the CBS Nightly News anchor tied it all up in a nice little bow for everyone. That was the news, and the truth, you know because it had been blessed by the Columbia Broadcast System.
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Against Crony Capitalism to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.