For The Right, Free Speech Always Meant Hate Speech.

Censorship Is Only An Issue When It Affects Conservatives.

Mark Zuckerberg On Joe Rogan’s Podcast.

Donald Trump recently bragged about his threats to Meta being the reason they’ve changed their fact-check and censorship policy. While his supporters are cheering this on, it’s not quite the win the right chalks it up to be. Especially not for free speech.

At least not what free speech is supposed to be. For MAGA, free speech largely revolves around hate speech. Which is shown in most of their outcries of censorship revolving around those “canceled” for things they said.

The word “canceled” there is also carrying a lot of weight, as many of these times these characters get propped up to folk hero status by the right. Names like Gina Carano come to mind, who was “canceled” for downplaying the atrocities of Nazi’s, now has over one million followers on X.

Or Riley Gains, who tied for fifth place with transgender swimmer Lia Thomas, and launched a tirade of anti-trans rhetoric on social media. She now has over one million followers on X as well, and makes consistent appearances on Fox News, Piers Morgan, and other major media stations.

Riley Gains, Speaking At CPAC.

Ultimately, these people were fired from companies who didn’t align with these ideas and that was enough for MAGA to cry foul. Despite this propping them up to levels of fame they wouldn’t otherwise have, and them in no way being prevented from saying the things they wanted.

The truth about capitalism is that private companies have the power to fire you for any reason they choose. Free speech, the constitutional right, doesn’t protect you from the consequences of your actions.

What MAGA wants, is to be able to say whatever hateful thing and have no social repercussions for it, which is outrageous. It was also the standard prior to the Civil Rights Act, when discrimination against minority groups was a norm.

The evidence of this is abundant. Where was the MAGA outcry when X censored a JD Vance dossier in the lead up to the 2024 election? The journalist, Ken Klippenstein, even had his account banned for sharing it. Yet not a peep from MAGA.

A major argument from MAGA for allowing COVID misinformation on social media is how “the people” can discern the truth from the facts and it should be handled in the public square, not by the government. Yet when Trump appointed Judge Aileen Canon blocked the special council from releasing Trump’s Election Interference Report to the public, MAGA cheered this on.

Shouldn’t it be released into the public for “the people” to decide the legitimacy of as it is debated in the town square? Yet MAGA doesn’t consistently hold the principle for this.

The list goes on, but the purpose of free speech was to allow the State(the little guy) assurances that their voice will still have a place against the Federal Government(the big guy) as is the case with the entirety of the bill of rights. Yet MAGA seems to push for the inverse of this.

X User Blocked From Posting Vance Dossier.

When the little guy is censored by the big guy, the two aforementioned examples above, MAGA sees no problem with this. They’ll even cheer it on to the extent it helps their side win.

But when the big guy’s power is limited in how it’s used to discriminate against the little guy, like social media’s not allowing the majority race to do racism against a minority race, MAGA finds this unconstitutional and a step too far.

Which is what sets the basis of MAGA cheering on Meta changing its rules to essentially allow for hate speech as some sort of free speech victory. A few examples of things now allowed on Meta include:

"There's no such thing as trans children."
"God created two genders, 'transgender' people are not a real thing."
"This whole non-binary thing is made up. Those people don't exist, they're just in need of some therapy."
"A trans woman isn't a woman, it's a pathetic confused man."
"A trans person isn't a he or she, it's an it."

Which, to help put in perspective, let’s lay out why this kind of speech should be blocked from social media. Multiple studies have attributed negative outcomes to the discrimination and invalidation of the Transgender community, especially Trans-youths. With it leading to higher levels of depression, PTSD, anxiety, and suicidal thoughts.

MAGA’s contention here lies on a convoluted belief that their bias against this group of people holds more weight than the statistical outcomes this group faces when ostracized. Unfortunately for the right, inclusion is a human right, thus the burden falls on those trying to exclude.

This is where, as a country, we’ve understood the utility in limiting certain forms of speech in certain scenarios or environments. While we would never prevent someone from saying bomb, we understand why someone shouldn’t be able to walk on an airplane and yell bomb. The same logic applies here.

Something MAGA will never tell you is true freedom is a positive liberty, not a negative liberty. Meaning freedom lies in the ability to act, not in the removal of restrictions. It’s on this basis we restrict all kinds of “rights” or “freedoms” to ensure a baseline of positive liberty to everyone.

Now where this line is drawn is a real question, when does this assurance of liberty become government overreach. I would argue it’s when a Judge appointed by the incoming President blocks a report from the public that is about that same incoming President. Conservatives would argue its when they aren’t allowed to say the N-word on Meta.

Courtesy Of Rob Rogers.

The other part of this is Meta ending its fact checking. As MAGA found it to be bias against them, something that should instantly disqualify them as a serious political party. If one party is lying more than the other, what are fact checkers supposed to do?

Find the middle ground? The idea of the “middle ground” in these discussion is such a misnomer anyway. Do you think if someone was trying to murder 7 members of your family, and you obviously wanted none murdered, the guy who is saying okay just murder 3 is coming from the middle ground?

This is the ridiculousness of the idea there is middle ground that needs to be worked out in the public square between objective truths and alternative facts. Especially when there has been no controversy around the legitimacy of the fact check claims, and Zuckerberg seemingly being pressured into this after meeting with Donald Trump.

For contrast, what most conservatives want is a system like Community Notes, and the reason for this also gives the game away. The standard of “truth” is much lower in a community note. Anyone without an X violation, a verified phone number, and X account 6 months old can participate in leaving these notes.

If any given note is rated “Helpful” 5 times by others who leave community notes, they are eligible to be shown under the X post. Meaning all it would take 6 people who believe something objectively false to have it shown under a post as the truth.

For Meta, they utilize non-partisan, independent fact check organizations from all over the world. Where it is then analyzed, matched with credible and verifiable sources and then marked either true or untrue based on its contents.

So let’s play out a similar scenario in both of these standards. Utilizing someone spreading the idea that Clorox is the best cure for cancer.

Under Meta’s standards, this would be flagged almost instantly, where sources would then be matched up to the claim and it would clearly be evident it is untrue. However, on X, if 5 people didn’t agree with a community note calling this false it would never show up.

It would also go unflagged as false until the community got those votes rather than instantly, and lets say the community note only said to get the off-brand kind instead, as long as it gets 5 votes of “helpful” that’s all that would be shown underneath.

Which standard do you think could lead to more potential harm? Now extrapolate this across the spectrum of possibilities from health, politics, to environment or economy.

It becomes clear why fact checks exist, why they should exist in a non-partisan basis, and if anything Reagan using this exact premise to reject the Fairness Doctrine should’ve taught us not the make the same mistake again.