Jan. 7, 2025 - Liberty Hangout - Kaitlin Bennett
08:45
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| Time | Text |
|---|---|
| Remember when we'd all get thrown into Facebook jail for having the wrong opinions? | |
| Well, I have some shocking news for you guys. | |
| Those days are about to be over because Mark Zuckerberg is back and more base than ever. | |
| Facebook has hands down been the worst platform for conservatives over the past decade. | |
| From shadow banning to fact-checking to outright nuking accounts, it seemed like Mark Zuckerberg's team was on a mission to silence anyone who dared to challenge the left-wing narrative. | |
| Censorship was so bad that it even had its own nickname, Facebook Jail. | |
| You've probably been in it. | |
| You couldn't even criticize lockdowns, question elections, or share anything remotely conservative without fearing a suspension, or worse, losing your account forever. | |
| On a platform that people use to post pictures of their kids and connect with family members and old classmates, Facebook's censorship of wrongthink wasn't just unnecessary. | |
| It was downright heartless. | |
| But now, Zuckerberg is singing a different tune. | |
| In a video he just released, he announced that Facebook and Instagram are getting back to their roots by lifting censorship and restoring free speech. | |
| Even if they accidentally censor just 1% of posts, that's millions of people. | |
| And we've reached a point where it's just too many mistakes and too much censorship. | |
| The recent elections also feel like a cultural tipping point towards once again prioritizing speech. | |
| So we're going to get back to our roots and focus on reducing mistakes, simplifying our policies, and restoring free expression on our platforms. | |
| Yes, you heard that right. | |
| Facebook, the platform that spent the last decade throttling conservatives, wants to make free expression its top priority again. | |
| And honestly, I didn't think I'd ever say this, but I'm excited for it. | |
| Before I get into what this means for us, let's take a step back and talk about how bad it's been. | |
| Facebook used to be the place for conservatives to connect. | |
| It was our biggest platform by far. | |
| And for me personally, I was able to reach millions of you guys weekly. | |
| But in March of 2024, Zuckerberg and his team dropped a bombshell. | |
| They were going to hide all political content from people's feeds. | |
| Overnight, my reach was decimated and you can see it right here. | |
| My videos, which used to routinely get hundreds of thousands or even millions of views, were barely scratching the tens of thousands in just a matter of weeks. | |
| It's been so hard to reach you guys and I'm so grateful for those of you who have gone out of your way to search for my content since Facebook started hiding it. | |
| So when Zuckerberg announced this major shift, I couldn't help but to feel a glimmer of hope. | |
| In this video, he said it's time to reduce mistakes, simplify policies, and restore free expression. | |
| He even admitted the system they built to moderate content has been a disaster, saying even a 1% error rate in censorship adds up to millions of people being silenced. | |
| And let me tell you, you and I were part of that 1%. | |
| Wage that fight against the 1%. | |
| Here's the plan Zuckerberg laid out. | |
| Number one, no more fact checkers. | |
| He's replacing them with something like community notes, like the system X uses. | |
| But the fact checkers have just been too politically biased and have destroyed more trust than they've created. | |
| Number two, simplified policies. | |
| Restrictions on topics like immigration and gender will be gone. | |
| He even said those restrictions are out of touch with mainstream discourse. | |
| What started as a movement to be more inclusive has increasingly been used to shut down opinions and shut out people with different ideas. | |
| And it's gone too far. | |
| Three, fair enforcement. | |
| They're reworking how they enforce roles to focus only on illegal content and high severity violations. | |
| The problem is that the filters make mistakes and they take down a lot of content that they shouldn't. | |
| So by dialing them back, we're going to dramatically reduce the amount of censorship on our platforms. | |
| Four, civic content is back. | |
| Facebook and Instagram will start phasing back in political content, something we've been hiding for years. | |
| For a while, the community asked to see less politics because it was making people stressed. | |
| So we stopped recommending these posts. | |
| But it feels like we're in a new era and we're starting to get feedback that people want to see this content again. | |
| Five, relocation of trust and safety teams. | |
| They will be moving these teams from liberal California to the red state of Texas to, in his words, reduce bias. | |
| U.S.-based content review is going to be based in Texas. | |
| As we work to promote free expression, I think that it will help us build trust to do this work in places where there is less concern about the bias of our teams. | |
| And my personal favorite, number six, working with Trump. | |
| Yes, you heard that right. | |
| Zuckerberg said he'll be working with President Trump to push back against global censorship trends. | |
| Finally, we're going to work with President Trump to push back on governments around the world that are going after American companies and pushing to censor more. | |
| That last one really blew me away. | |
| Zuckerberg working with Trump? | |
| The same Zuckerberg who donated millions to influence elections in favor of Joe Biden in 2020? | |
| It's hard to believe, but it's clear the culture is changing. | |
| Just look at Zuckerberg himself. | |
| In recent months, he's been showing off his pro-America streak, donating to Trump, calling him a badass, and even hydrofoiling with an American flag. | |
| On a personal note, it's yeah, I mean, seeing Donald Trump get get up after getting shot in the face and pump his fist in the air with the American flag is one of the most badass things I've ever seen in my life. | |
| The pendulum is finally swinging our way. | |
| Trump's victory has already had a dominant effect on this country, and now it's even reaching Silicon Valley. | |
| Facebook is finally waking up to what we've been saying all along. | |
| Censorship doesn't work and free speech is the only way forward. | |
| But let's not get too far ahead of ourselves. | |
| Words are one thing, but actions are another. | |
| Zuckerberg's plan sounds great, but we've seen this before. | |
| Big promises and little follow through. | |
| What I'm most excited to see is whether they'll restore the accounts of people who were banned for their political beliefs. | |
| How many of you lost your accounts for sharing a meme or posting about the 2020 election? | |
| It's time for Facebook to make it right and bring back those voices. | |
| For me personally, this could be a game changer. | |
| I've struggled for the last year to reach my audience on Facebook. | |
| It used to be so easy to connect with you guys, but now only a small fraction of you even have these videos make it through your feed. | |
| Which makes me curious to know, how did you find my videos since my content has been struggling to make it into your feed since these changes? | |
| Let me know in the comments below. | |
| Without the ability to reach my entire audience, it's been more difficult than ever to keep my content monetized. | |
| Which is why I'm asking you to leave a super thanks below or go to patreon.com slash Caitlin Bennett to directly support my work. | |
| You can gain access to my private Facebook group to chat with me one-on-one, which, if Facebook is serious about restoring free expression, will finally give us a chance to speak freely and openly about content ideas and things going on in our country. | |
| And that's pretty exciting. | |
| But here's the kicker. | |
| Zuckerberg's commitment to free speech comes the same week Elon Musk announced new restrictions on X, which many worry put Elon's promise to build a free speech platform in jeopardy. | |
| Make sure you hit that subscribe button and notification bell so you can stay tuned for my next video where I'll give my thoughts on how I feel about the direction Elon's taken Twitter or X. For now though, I want to celebrate this moment. | |
| It's rare to see a tech giant admit they were wrong and take steps to fix it. | |
| Zuckerberg deserves credit for seeing the writing on the wall and trying to make things right. | |
| Even if he is just trying to save face and save a dying platform, which if he does follow through with the promises and people can leave comments without the fear of losing their accounts, Facebook could become a really incredible platform again. | |
| So what do you guys think? | |
| Is Zuckerberg serious about free speech or is this just another PR stunt? | |
| If you're brave enough, leave your most controversial hot takes in the comments below to see if any of the bans have been lifted yet. | |
| And as always, don't forget to like and share so we can beat the algorithms and find our way back into people's feeds. |
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