We can approve of the changes Zuckerberg is making without developing any respect for Zuckerberg. He might earn some respect over time, and this is a good first step, but his motivations remain suspect.
He's doing the right thing, but is he doing the right thing for the right reasons? In other words, is this an indication that he can be depended on in the future to do the right thing?
He's almost certainly not doing this for the "right reasons". Zuckerberg is a political weather vane. He goes whichever way he sees the political winds blow. That's why Musk's willingness to buy Twitter and remove censorship was so important. He was willing to do so even when the easy and more profitable choice at that time would have been to take the Zuck path and "go along to get along" with the people in power. That's why Musk has far more credibility with me than Zuck at this point.
I believe in the run up to the 2020 election and beyond section 230 was under threat as government agencies did not like seeing information/opinion they disagreed with gaining traction with the public and social media made this possible. This is a partisan opinion and may be unfair, but the push to rein in what some considered harmful discussion seemed to come primarily from the Democrats as they are more tightly aligned with government institutions and the legacy media. I remember Jerry Nadler, when asked about potential legislation to deal with "the problem" responding, "We'll see how they do." I suspect Facebook and others interpreted that as the threat I believe it was meant to be. The sensible business response was to "fact check" anything that contradicted the Democrats view of what true or that they might view as "harmful." The Republicans were viewed as less of a threat in this regard as they are no friends of legacy media, less inclined to regulate, and would view a free social media as a way their message out. That environment, combined with the political leanings of silicon valley employees in general, made suppression of conservative ideas inevitable. The problem, which I'm sure Zuckerberg recognized, is that as soon you start regulating content you become a publisher which eliminates the justification for Section 230. I suspect he's honestly relieved to see the change in the political environment that enables Facebook to abandon "fact checking" as it was totally inconsistent with the immunity that 230 provides.
The search for truth requires disagreement, and respect for those with whom we disagree. We never learn anything talking just to people who agree with us. It is by the process of thesis, antithesis and synthesis that our assumptions are tested, modified and strengthened with new data and new insights. Thus, those who silence the voices who disagree with them are not searching for the truth; they are ideologues thrusting after power.
The destroyer of miss-disinformation is time. With time comes more information. Unfortunately, many of the more emotional people don’t want to wait for that information and once they make up their mind quickly, they are too lazy to learn and change it. What did Roger call those scientists who put out quick but inaccurate “science” for MSM consumption? The MSM could change it all, but for the masses, partisans, is who the MSM performs for.
There is nothing in climate change that is remotely as dangerous as censorship and fact-checking. The Orwellian tyranny of the left is the greatest threat to freedom since the Soviets. We must be vigilant to protect freedom from these people. Thanks for the great news on Facebook.
Yes this move by Facebook is good and overdue. It is a consequence of the revolution that Donald Trump has caused and his bi-partisan coalition that is made up mostly of people who have been victimized by the censorship industrial complex. This vast enterprise includes tens of thousands of Federal bureauocrats, many NGOs funded by the Federal government, and used to include big tech as well. Trump I think will waste no time dismantling the government arm and defunding the NGOs.
It is also interesting that Zuckerberg also is hoping the Federal government will pressure the rest of the world, particularly European governments, to pull back their censorship programs which are more intrusive than ours is. In Britain you can go to jail for expressing many mainstream political opinions and the police chief in London says he will also charge Americans and seek their extradition. This is really really totalitarian stuff.
What is very surprising in retrospect is how docile most people were in the face of this authoritarianism. In the US, it was the worst since WWI when Woodrow Wilson tried to jail many opponents of the war. He also got the Sedition Act passed which remains to this day a blight on our Republic and was even used against Julian Assange. One can think of it as analogous to the Counter Reformation -- a totalitarian attempt by old elites to regain their monopoly on information that the printing press had destroyed. The widespread availability of the internet has brought an even more powerful revolution in information availability. Thus the censorship industrial complex is the last gasp of the old elites to retain their power and in many cases their jobs.
Michael Schellenberger and Matt Taibbi are good on this censorship issue.
Big challenges remain for the "Science" because this censorhip has invaded even the most venerated science institutions. I found this recent article in Science that is disturbing.
basically advocating that scientists become more politically active. It also repeats all the nonsense about disinformation and the need to control it. I tried to respond with an eletter but so far it hasn't appeared and I'm not expected it to be approved either.
The other obstacle here is really the Democrat party which has become the party of censorship and authoritarianism. We voters need to continue to punish them until they change because this is a war every citizen has a stake in.
Behind this perhaps is the fact that science has hit a wall of complex nonlinear systems where uncertainty is often large. And then there is the replication crisis as well. The pandemic exposed the fact that many fields such as epidemiology are primitive and are based on cured mechanistic narratives that lack quantification. I do have hope that Jay Battacharia and Marty Makary and RFKJ can make fundamental change happen by reforming the grant process, which is badly broken.
We all dodged a bullet when Donald Trump turned his head in Butler to look at his chart. Trump is a change agent much like Teddy Roosevelt who inspires hatred and resistance from corrupt elites. Roosevelt destroyed the power of the malefactors of great wealth and increased the power of labor and the common man. Hopefully Trump will do the same.
I'm with you on just about all of what you lay out, Roger, particularly the need for a comfort level with acting not only under uncertainty but also under complexity (varied stances by experts with varied disciplines and value orientations). The problem is that the "community notes" alternative - at least the model at X (which Zuckerberg alluded to) faces enormous challenges if it is to be useful. I speak from experience, having participated in Notes for more than a year. One big one is that the process can be (and has been) gamed as flocks of ideologically driven users swarm with "NNN" posts (note not needed). That delays any correction long enough that the fakery spreads like crazy and correctives are posted far too late to be of use: https://x.com/Revkin/status/1876630289453138340
Thank you for a compelling and reasoned take on this. It's a "yes, and" for me because I will say that I am having a hard time squaring Meta's announcement with the AI generated accounts that the company is currently Beta testing...fake people, holding fake clothing drives, in fake relationships, with fake opinions on real things in real communities. Does this give these accounts personhood with free speech rights? Who controls the distribution algorithm that would amplify these non-human voices? What a time to be alive...
Hope this re-platforms you, Roger! Never doubt you constant pushing against such "choosing" by Meta, help turn the internal thinking of Meta, starting with Mark Z. It's a brighter day today, and a new year.
Love him or hate him, the turning point was Musk buying Twitter and releasing the files, that has made everything else possible in the last couple years.
Exposure to light, the worst thing possible for censors.
Assuming “democracy” wins this battle, that action by Musk regardless what else he gets up to will be celebrated.
The left everywhere needs a long time out and rediscover meaning.
Another take on Zuck’s phony shift: https://substack.com/@carlitashaw/note/c-85012547
We can approve of the changes Zuckerberg is making without developing any respect for Zuckerberg. He might earn some respect over time, and this is a good first step, but his motivations remain suspect.
He's doing the right thing, but is he doing the right thing for the right reasons? In other words, is this an indication that he can be depended on in the future to do the right thing?
Time may tell...
He's almost certainly not doing this for the "right reasons". Zuckerberg is a political weather vane. He goes whichever way he sees the political winds blow. That's why Musk's willingness to buy Twitter and remove censorship was so important. He was willing to do so even when the easy and more profitable choice at that time would have been to take the Zuck path and "go along to get along" with the people in power. That's why Musk has far more credibility with me than Zuck at this point.
I believe in the run up to the 2020 election and beyond section 230 was under threat as government agencies did not like seeing information/opinion they disagreed with gaining traction with the public and social media made this possible. This is a partisan opinion and may be unfair, but the push to rein in what some considered harmful discussion seemed to come primarily from the Democrats as they are more tightly aligned with government institutions and the legacy media. I remember Jerry Nadler, when asked about potential legislation to deal with "the problem" responding, "We'll see how they do." I suspect Facebook and others interpreted that as the threat I believe it was meant to be. The sensible business response was to "fact check" anything that contradicted the Democrats view of what true or that they might view as "harmful." The Republicans were viewed as less of a threat in this regard as they are no friends of legacy media, less inclined to regulate, and would view a free social media as a way their message out. That environment, combined with the political leanings of silicon valley employees in general, made suppression of conservative ideas inevitable. The problem, which I'm sure Zuckerberg recognized, is that as soon you start regulating content you become a publisher which eliminates the justification for Section 230. I suspect he's honestly relieved to see the change in the political environment that enables Facebook to abandon "fact checking" as it was totally inconsistent with the immunity that 230 provides.
The search for truth requires disagreement, and respect for those with whom we disagree. We never learn anything talking just to people who agree with us. It is by the process of thesis, antithesis and synthesis that our assumptions are tested, modified and strengthened with new data and new insights. Thus, those who silence the voices who disagree with them are not searching for the truth; they are ideologues thrusting after power.
The destroyer of miss-disinformation is time. With time comes more information. Unfortunately, many of the more emotional people don’t want to wait for that information and once they make up their mind quickly, they are too lazy to learn and change it. What did Roger call those scientists who put out quick but inaccurate “science” for MSM consumption? The MSM could change it all, but for the masses, partisans, is who the MSM performs for.
Roger, call me a cynic, but Zuck is a front-runner, and I do not believe anything he says. Let's see what actually transpires.
There is nothing in climate change that is remotely as dangerous as censorship and fact-checking. The Orwellian tyranny of the left is the greatest threat to freedom since the Soviets. We must be vigilant to protect freedom from these people. Thanks for the great news on Facebook.
This is wonderful news; two down (x and facebook); several more to go; google, youtube, linked in, wikipedia, others?
Roger, Interesting that the UN recently declared itself the arbiter of truth regarding climate.
https://www.climatedepot.com/2025/01/01/uns-new-mission-fight-the-climate-related-disinformation-running-rampant-on-social-media-debunk-myths-put-an-end-to-the-narratives-of-denialism-global-initiative-for-information-int/
I am unimpressed. https://edreid.substack.com/p/misdismal-information
“When the facts aren’t on your side, pound the table”.
The UN just hasn’t gotten the word that the world is changing
But they will
Yes this move by Facebook is good and overdue. It is a consequence of the revolution that Donald Trump has caused and his bi-partisan coalition that is made up mostly of people who have been victimized by the censorship industrial complex. This vast enterprise includes tens of thousands of Federal bureauocrats, many NGOs funded by the Federal government, and used to include big tech as well. Trump I think will waste no time dismantling the government arm and defunding the NGOs.
It is also interesting that Zuckerberg also is hoping the Federal government will pressure the rest of the world, particularly European governments, to pull back their censorship programs which are more intrusive than ours is. In Britain you can go to jail for expressing many mainstream political opinions and the police chief in London says he will also charge Americans and seek their extradition. This is really really totalitarian stuff.
What is very surprising in retrospect is how docile most people were in the face of this authoritarianism. In the US, it was the worst since WWI when Woodrow Wilson tried to jail many opponents of the war. He also got the Sedition Act passed which remains to this day a blight on our Republic and was even used against Julian Assange. One can think of it as analogous to the Counter Reformation -- a totalitarian attempt by old elites to regain their monopoly on information that the printing press had destroyed. The widespread availability of the internet has brought an even more powerful revolution in information availability. Thus the censorship industrial complex is the last gasp of the old elites to retain their power and in many cases their jobs.
Michael Schellenberger and Matt Taibbi are good on this censorship issue.
Big challenges remain for the "Science" because this censorhip has invaded even the most venerated science institutions. I found this recent article in Science that is disturbing.
https://www.science.org/doi/full/10.1126/science.adt7194
basically advocating that scientists become more politically active. It also repeats all the nonsense about disinformation and the need to control it. I tried to respond with an eletter but so far it hasn't appeared and I'm not expected it to be approved either.
The other obstacle here is really the Democrat party which has become the party of censorship and authoritarianism. We voters need to continue to punish them until they change because this is a war every citizen has a stake in.
Behind this perhaps is the fact that science has hit a wall of complex nonlinear systems where uncertainty is often large. And then there is the replication crisis as well. The pandemic exposed the fact that many fields such as epidemiology are primitive and are based on cured mechanistic narratives that lack quantification. I do have hope that Jay Battacharia and Marty Makary and RFKJ can make fundamental change happen by reforming the grant process, which is badly broken.
We all dodged a bullet when Donald Trump turned his head in Butler to look at his chart. Trump is a change agent much like Teddy Roosevelt who inspires hatred and resistance from corrupt elites. Roosevelt destroyed the power of the malefactors of great wealth and increased the power of labor and the common man. Hopefully Trump will do the same.
These "fact checkers" were Soviet-style political commissars
...in the tradition of Orwell's "Ministry of Truth".
The US government abandoned its "Disinformation Governance Board", which would have been its "Ministry of Truth".
Government has realized that misinformation is easiest to control if it is the source of the misinformation. It would prefer a monopoly.
I'm with you on just about all of what you lay out, Roger, particularly the need for a comfort level with acting not only under uncertainty but also under complexity (varied stances by experts with varied disciplines and value orientations). The problem is that the "community notes" alternative - at least the model at X (which Zuckerberg alluded to) faces enormous challenges if it is to be useful. I speak from experience, having participated in Notes for more than a year. One big one is that the process can be (and has been) gamed as flocks of ideologically driven users swarm with "NNN" posts (note not needed). That delays any correction long enough that the fakery spreads like crazy and correctives are posted far too late to be of use: https://x.com/Revkin/status/1876630289453138340
So … kind of like RCP8.5? 😉
Where’s my laughing emoji when I need it??
Thank you Roger. Particularly in light of advances in AI and its ability to produce superficially
plausible copy that is garbage, I fall back on the advice of a great-grandfather: "Believe nothing of what you hear, and only half of what you see".
Reminds me of another good one:
Keep an open mind but not so open your brains fall out.
Thank you for a compelling and reasoned take on this. It's a "yes, and" for me because I will say that I am having a hard time squaring Meta's announcement with the AI generated accounts that the company is currently Beta testing...fake people, holding fake clothing drives, in fake relationships, with fake opinions on real things in real communities. Does this give these accounts personhood with free speech rights? Who controls the distribution algorithm that would amplify these non-human voices? What a time to be alive...
Hope this re-platforms you, Roger! Never doubt you constant pushing against such "choosing" by Meta, help turn the internal thinking of Meta, starting with Mark Z. It's a brighter day today, and a new year.
Had Kamala Harris been elected president, would Meta have made this announcement?
Not a chance
The discussion would not even be occurring.
Love him or hate him, the turning point was Musk buying Twitter and releasing the files, that has made everything else possible in the last couple years.
Exposure to light, the worst thing possible for censors.
Assuming “democracy” wins this battle, that action by Musk regardless what else he gets up to will be celebrated.
The left everywhere needs a long time out and rediscover meaning.
Absolutely not.
Unlikely IMO
It's scary to think about isn't it? Or what the world would be like if Musk hadn't bought Twitter?
Musk still throttles Substack at X
That needs to be fixed also
And now he’s changing the algorithm again in what suspiciously looks like a way to suppress criticism of the new regime.
Not one human is perfect
But I will render unto Caesar