Notebook: (2) Letting the Dogs Out

Hugely consequential tools are being built-to-order by our moment

Untitled, Carlos Mérida (1979)

Read Part One of this post here!

The other changes to Meta content policy announced on Tuesday include restoring political speech to the feeds, where it had been previously demoted to avoid controversy (for this Mark Zuckerberg consulted his feelings: “it feels like we are in a new era now,” “we’re starting to get feedback that people want this material again,” just exactly when one might say au contraire), and that he is moving content moderation staff to Texas, where many of the teams have actually been located for many years, implying (“as we work to promote free expression,” in free-expression idyll Texas, “where there is less concern about the bias of our teams”) that these low-paid employees themselves are responsible for policy decisions that are in fact made at a high level—again throwing staff under the bus for his own decisions. Dave Willner said on “Lawfare Live” that the content policy-making staff was actually increasingly concentrated in Washington, DC, under the direction of Joel Kaplan.

Mark Zuckerberg’s last announcement was that Meta will be teaming up with the Trump administration to promote free speech around the world. Using the might of the government to defend speech against “censorship” is an interesting twist on the original formulation. Mark Zuckerberg identified threats to free speech in China (where, as legal scholar Katie Klonick noted on “Lawfare Live,” he has substantial business interests that the Trump administration can help him advance) and Latin America (in an apparent reference to Brazil’s suspension of X after the platform failed to curtail far-right accounts and alleged misinformation). Mark Zuckerberg did not mention Europe, which has in recent years enacted far more restrictive legislation that menaces the tech companies’ reach and profts—or “innovation,” depending on whom you ask.