July 10, 2020

Mark Zuckerberg Is Right

Mark Zuckerberg clearly hasn’t gotten the memo. The founder of Facebook persists in defending free expression, even though free speech has fallen decidedly out of fashion.

Mark Zuckerberg clearly hasn’t gotten the memo.

The founder of Facebook persists in defending free expression, even though free speech has fallen decidedly out of fashion.

His reward for adhering to what once would have been a commonsensical, if not banal, view of the value of the free exchange of ideas is to get vilified for running a hate-speech machine and to get boycotted by major American companies.

In a speech at Georgetown University last fall, Zuckerberg stated that it’s important “we hold each other’s right to express our views and be heard above our own desire to always get the outcomes we want.” He noted that free speech has been central to the worldwide fight for democracy. He hailed Supreme Court jurisprudence that has strengthened First Amendment protections.

Once upon a time, the reaction would have been, “We’re glad that a titan of Silicon Valley has absorbed core American values and is attempting, however imperfectly, to apply them to his company.”

In 2020, the reaction instead has been, “Let’s get the bastard.”

Internet companies are always going to be engaged in the fraught business of drawing the line between what’s permissible or not, but the current Facebook controversy is more consequential than that. The company is the target of left-wing activists who, with the ready assent of corporate America, have been able to force a wave of cancellations around the culture and now seek to bend a social media behemoth to their will.

(Full disclosure: My publication, National Review, is part of the Facebook News tab.)

The Georgetown speech led the activists to conclude, as a report in Politico magazine put it, “the CEO believed, deep in his bones, that his commitment to free expression … was right.”

And, again, this was a bad thing.

One flashpoint was Zuckerberg’s reference to the importance of the First Amendment to the cause of civil rights over the years. This was a true and unassailable point, but one that activists considered offensive coming from Zuckerberg — as if he’s Bull Connor rather than a Silicon Valley executive with reliably progressive views on social issues.

Another was Zuckerberg’s insistence that Facebook wouldn’t censor politicians or fact-check political ads, taking an appropriately modest view of the company’s ability to fairly police political content involving wildly divergent worldviews and values.

The final straw was Facebook’s holding out against pressure in late May to act against President Donald Trump’s infamous post saying, “when the looting starts, the shooting starts.” This was a stupid, inflammatory and unpresidential thing to say, but it wasn’t an incitement to violence. In keeping the post up, Facebook wanted people to draw their own conclusions; it wasn’t an endorsement, but an invitation to debate — exactly what the activists want to curtail.

They have pursued two lines of attack. One has been to get companies to stop advertising with Facebook, and many have been only too eager to lend their names to a trendy campaign of intimidation.

The other has been to associate Facebook with the words “racism” and “hate” as much as possible to create the slanderous misimpression that Facebook makes its money off the posts of neo-Nazis rather than ordinary people who find it, for better or worse, a useful platform.

I’ve been harshly critical of Facebook over the years, but on this it is right. The public is served by a robust debate online, where people can decide for themselves the merits of what Trump or Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez says.

The stakes are especially high in this fight. Facebook is an institution too big to cancel. Despite all the corporate names associated with it, the advertising boycott is a mere flesh wound in terms of the company’s revenue. If Zuckerberg can nonetheless be browbeaten out of his well-considered support for a free speech-centric approach to his platform, it will be a particularly portentous omen in a period of our national life full of them.

© 2020 by King Features Syndicate

Who We Are

The Patriot Post is a highly acclaimed weekday digest of news analysis, policy and opinion written from the heartland — as opposed to the MSM’s ubiquitous Beltway echo chambers — for grassroots leaders nationwide. More

What We Offer

On the Web

We provide solid conservative perspective on the most important issues, including analysis, opinion columns, headline summaries, memes, cartoons and much more.

Via Email

Choose our full-length Digest or our quick-reading Snapshot for a summary of important news. We also offer Cartoons & Memes on Monday and Alexander’s column on Wednesday.

Our Mission

The Patriot Post is steadfast in our mission to extend the endowment of Liberty to the next generation by advocating for individual rights and responsibilities, supporting the restoration of constitutional limits on government and the judiciary, and promoting free enterprise, national defense and traditional American values. We are a rock-solid conservative touchstone for the expanding ranks of grassroots Americans Patriots from all walks of life. Our mission and operation budgets are not financed by any political or special interest groups, and to protect our editorial integrity, we accept no advertising. We are sustained solely by you. Please support The Patriot Fund today!


The Patriot Post and Patriot Foundation Trust, in keeping with our Military Mission of Service to our uniformed service members and veterans, are proud to support and promote the National Medal of Honor Heritage Center, the Congressional Medal of Honor Society, both the Honoring the Sacrifice and Warrior Freedom Service Dogs aiding wounded veterans, the National Veterans Entrepreneurship Program, the Folds of Honor outreach, and Officer Christian Fellowship, the Air University Foundation, and Naval War College Foundation, and the Naval Aviation Museum Foundation. "Greater love has no one than this, to lay down one's life for his friends." (John 15:13)

★ PUBLIUS ★

“Our cause is noble; it is the cause of mankind!” —George Washington

Please join us in prayer for our nation — that righteous leaders would rise and prevail and we would be united as Americans. Pray also for the protection of our Military Patriots, Veterans, First Responders, and their families. Please lift up your Patriot team and our mission to support and defend our Republic's Founding Principle of Liberty, that the fires of freedom would be ignited in the hearts and minds of our countrymen.

The Patriot Post is protected speech, as enumerated in the First Amendment and enforced by the Second Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America, in accordance with the endowed and unalienable Rights of All Mankind.

Copyright © 2024 The Patriot Post. All Rights Reserved.

The Patriot Post does not support Internet Explorer. We recommend installing the latest version of Microsoft Edge, Mozilla Firefox, or Google Chrome.