The Patriot Post® · Zuckerberg Wrong on Free Speech

Recently it came to light via a leaked audio recording that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is concerned about the prospect of a President Elizabeth Warren. “If [Warren] gets elected president,” Zuckerberg warned, “then I would bet that we will have a legal challenge, and I would bet that we will win the legal challenge. And does that suck for us? Yeah. I mean, I don’t want to have a major lawsuit against our own government.” Of course, this doesn’t mean that Zuckerberg has now become a fan of President Donald Trump, as Trump and Republicans have been highly critical of social-media companies and their biased practice of banning and limiting conservative speech on their platforms.

On Thursday, The Wall Street Journal published an op-ed by Zuckerberg wherein he attempted to demonstrate his commitment to free speech, while at the same time blaming lawmakers for not doing enough to regulate online speech. Zuckerberg doesn’t seem to understand how free speech works, or why the First Amendment is specifically directed at prohibiting the government from governing speech.

The Washington Examiner’s Brad Polumbo observes, “But Zuckerberg continued to cite dubious crackdowns on ‘hate speech,’ saying content that ‘dehumanizes’ others won’t be allowed, because it can lead to violence. This is a highly problematic standard: According to the modern Left, just about any questioning of social justice dogma is ‘dehumanizing’ to some group.”

Back to Warren. Why is she going after Facebook? Does she object to Facebook’s suppression of free speech? Nope. Warren the socialist is attacking Facebook because it has not done enough to silence Trump and conservative voices. Furthermore, Warren ridiculously claims, “Facebook is actively helping Trump spread lies and misinformation. Facebook already helped elect Donald Trump once. They might do it again — and profit off of it.”

The issue for all Americans should be concerns over either massive corporations or the government seeking to censor and limit Americans’ First Amendment rights of free speech. What Zuckerberg endorses is a slippery slope that will inevitably lead to a loss of speech rights rather than protecting them.