https://www.normalisland.co.uk/p/mark-zuckerberg-is-pretending-that
This is what self-preservation looks like...
Laura
and Normal Island News
Jan 08, 2025

Mark Zuckerberg has pretended to declare War on Censorship to stop the incoming President Trump from kicking him in the bollocks. Zuckerberg, or Zuck as he prefers to be called, surprised many with the revelation that he has bollocks because he is often mistaken for Data from Star Trek. Some even assumed he is one of those AI profiles that Meta is determined to flood its platforms with to reduce the chances of you interacting with actual humans. Social media platforms are not for being social, you weirdos.

Anyways, where was I? … Oh yes, the robot with testicles announced Meta's latest policy shift on Threads, the platform that is like Blue Sky, only you never see posts from people you actually follow.

Zuck proudly announced that Meta needs to “get back to our roots around free expression”. This gave me a heart attack because I assumed he meant a return to the days that made Skwawkbox and The Canary possible. Thankfully, I’ve been reassured that that sort of free speech will still not be tolerated. I breathed a huge sigh of relief, I can tell you.

Sensibly, Meta is now refusing to censor the worst people on the internet, but it will quietly continue to censor the best ones. This is how free speech is supposed to work. Meta has done lots of noble things over the years, such as shadow-banning criticisms of war crimes and pulling about half of articles from independent media, just because they’re from independent media.

One of Meta’s best moves was to appoint mainstream propagandists like myself as arbiters of truth so it had an excuse to pull content that made the establishment look bad. Tons of factual stories were pulled, thanks to the sterling work of Facebook’s internal fact checkers, who checked with us that a story was factual and pulled it for your protection.

Only problem was for every good piece of information Meta removed, fact checkers also removed a piece of conspiracy bollocks from a far-right nutter who was supportive of the incoming administration. Therefore, something had to be done. I’m just not entirely happy about the something Meta has gone with…

Outrageously, propagandists like myself are being pulled from our role as arbiters of truth and replaced with something called “community notes”. I assume this will work like Twitter where people apply context to controversial posts, link to their sources and let the public vote on the validity of their information.

The community notes system is much more democratic, and therefore, deeply concerning. The only good thing about the policy shift is that The Guardian has gone into meltdown and declared that “truth is dead” because it’s not going to be deciding what is and isn’t true anymore. Life can be so unfair.

In a positive step, Meta has moved its fact-checking department from California to Texas where people, who think the earth is flat, still wear cowboy hats and say “yeehaw” while shooting coyotes. As a result, we can expect fact-checking that is neutral from the perspective of the incoming administration and no one normal. Predictably, the people who love censorship are distraught by the news, as are the people who hate censorship but know they will still be censored.

The real winners are the free thinkers who understand plucky working class billionaires Elon Musk and Donald Trump are going to save us from out of touch elites who want to impose gender-neutral pronouns on our pets and maximise shareholder profits through “communism”. Everything we don’t like about capitalism is communism...

Zuck explained that going forwards, Meta’s censorship bots will require a higher level of confidence before censoring a post. In the past, the bots only needed 30% confidence, meaning 70% of posts were censored in error. Thankfully, the bots will not consider bigoted posts and misinformation to be bad enough to warrant removal anymore. Think of it like Twitter where the most vile racists are allowed to say anything against any race, but not against Zionists who aren’t even a race. You still won’t be allowed to glorify Luigi Mangione, but you will be allowed to hate immigrants and transgender people. The aim is to “encourage debate” around these issues to distract your attention from things like war and genocide and the ruling class mercilessly exploiting you for profit. The hope is to keep you fighting each other forever. This position marks a stark contrast from Facebook’s previous policy which stopped you from discussing politics at all and forced you to watch makeup tutorials and cat videos, whether you liked it or not.

While the two factions of the establishment have bitter disagreements over the best way to control your minds, one thing they agree on is that you should not be allowed to discuss politics in a grownup and nuanced manner because if you did, people like me would be out of a job, wouldn’t we?