Report from Euractiv
In Brief – In a major one-on-one interview with leading podcaster Joe Rogan, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg framed the company’s public policy battles in Europe in the context of “censorship” and argued that incoming President Donald Trump should step in to protect American tech companies from foreign pressure. The discussion with Rogan followed announcements from Meta and Zuckerberg that the social media giant was changing its Facebook and Instagram content moderation processes, including eliminating the role of paid fact-checkers and replacing them with a community notes program like X has used since Elon Musk acquired that platform, and changing its speech codes and the automated filters to relax limits on language and commentary some call hate speech. The changes will be rolled out in the US first but are intended for other major markets as well, including in Europe. Zuckerberg said he expects a clash with EU officials and argued that “the US government has a role in basically defending [the US tech industry] abroad”.
Context – Meta’s big “rightward” shift in content moderation practices is best understood in the context of competition policy and digital platform regulation. President-elect Trump, but really US conservatives across the board, have believed for years that tech giants, especially in social media, have slanted the rules against them. Ending so-called “viewpoint censorship” is a universally accepted conservative tech policy priority. On the other hand, there is no conservative consensus on anti-Big Tech competition reforms and regulation. The EU moved ahead on all fronts with laws and enforcement actions applauded by most US progressives. On content moderation, X and Musk are clearly in the EU crosshairs in a way that may pull in Trump. Meta seems intent to join that fray with policies and rhetoric similar to X and Musk. Zuckerberg appears to hope that standing with Trump on “free speech” pulls him onto their side in their other standoffs with European regulators. And the President-elect has said repeatedly that other Big Tech leaders are also asking for nationalist help dealing with Europe.