Mark Zuckerberg Doesn’t Get Amnesty Without Accountability

Mark Zuckerberg announced on Tuesday that Meta is super-duper apologetic for censoring its political enemies for years on end. He promises to do better because his tech behemoth is actually a huge fan of free expression … They’ve just made a few “mistakes.”

That’s about as sincere as Meta’s PR blitz got, with Zuckerberg pointing the finger at pretty much everybody — legacy media, “complex” and “automated systems,” “filters,” political “movements,” the state of California, the U.S. government, experts, and third-party fact-checkers — except himself.

“The problem with complex systems is they make mistakes,” Zuckerberg apologized rationalized in a video message. “After Trump first got elected in 2016, the legacy media wrote nonstop about how misinformation was a threat to democracy. We tried in good faith to address those concerns without becoming the arbiters of truth. But the fact-checkers have just been too politically biased.” 

Many conservatives seem tickled at the thought of the second coming of Elon, savior of free speech. But color me more skeptical and enraged. I’m sure Zuckerberg’s sudden change of heart has nothing to do with Donald Trump getting ready to retake office after Zuckerberg banned him from Facebook and rigged the 2020 election against him …

If Meta follows through on its promises, the country will undoubtedly benefit. Moving tech employees from California to Texas sounds like an improvement. Accounts not being nuked for calling a man a man and a woman a woman is objectively good and long overdue, even if it’s the bare minimum a social media site can do.

But censoring the free press and free speech of everyday Americans wasn’t a victimless crime, and its perpetrators don’t just get to throw the injured party a “my B!” and carry on with their business while we pick up the pieces of the republic.

One of Meta’s most obvious sins was its rigging of the 2020 election, and no, it wasn’t the fault of “complex systems.” Right after disproportionately bankrolling election offices in the blue areas of swing states to run get-out-the-vote operations for Joe Biden, Zuckerberg himself announced in 2021 that his company was banning Trump, then the sitting president of the United States, from Facebook and Instagram indefinitely. No “mistakes” were made based on “complex systems” and biased experts; a calculated tech oligarch simply censored his political opponent.

Before that, Zuckerberg’s outfit throttled the completely true Hunter Biden laptop story that threatened to hurt Joe Biden’s 2020 chances. Because of Facebook’s actions, undecided American voters were deprived of access to bombshell evidence of the Biden family’s corrupt pay-to-play scheme just weeks before the election. Just as Zuckerberg now blames everyone else for Meta’s errors, in 2022 he blamed FBI warnings for his company censoring the laptop story.

It wasn’t just election interference, though. Americans were prevented from finding and sharing non-Fauci-approved Covid-19 information. It’s no exaggeration to say Facebook pushing Covid misinformation from the government contributed to people dying across the globe, as Covid panic led to deadly lockdowns. Those lockdowns kept many patients away from essential care and elderly Americans away from pivotal support systems. Studies show lockdowns also caused an increase in anxiety, child and domestic abuse, substance abuse, and suicide.

Meta has also silenced Americans for telling the truth about the sexes, abortion, the deadly effects of Biden’s border invasion, and election irregularities. The Federalist was censored for the above, plus much less consequential stories, like Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg pretending to bike to work.

For conservative media like The Federalist, Zuckerberg’s censorship has been tantamount to financial theft. His company single-handedly throttled many outlets’ reach and consequently our revenue. Right-wing media exist to counter the nonstop stream of lies from the propaganda press, so when tech giants silence us, the false regime narrative goes unchecked — and that’s no small thing in a functioning constitutional republic. But when your business model depends on ad dollars and you can’t just run to Daddy Bezos when traffic slows down, censorship is also stealing.

Now Zuckerberg wants amnesty. He wants to eat a teensy bit of crow in exchange for amnesiac friends across the aisle who treat him like the next Elon Musk who swooped in with lifeboats for the sinking ship, rather than the corrupt captain who took the ship down. This isn’t a real admission of guilt. We can’t give Mark Zuckerberg amnesty for the same reason we can’t give it to Anthony Fauci or Joe Biden or Letitia James or Jack Smith. There can be no amnesty without restitution and true accountability — for Covid crimes, corruption, lawfare, or, in this case, censorship. It’s too little, too late.

Zuckerberg is ultimately shooting for a plea deal in the court of public opinion. He wants to throw his co-conspirators under the bus and half-heartedly admit guilt for lesser offenses with the hope of a slap on the wrist and maybe a little community service. That’s not justice, and the American people should reject it.

We can all hope Meta’s changes make the dumpster fires of Facebook and Instagram burn a little less hot, but until Zuckerberg faces a reckoning for his republic-destroying actions, there should be no amnesty for him.

Kylee Griswold is the managing editor of The Federalist. She previously worked as the copy editor for the Washington Examiner magazine and as an editor and producer at National Geographic. She holds a B.S. in communication arts/speech and an A.S. in criminal justice and writes on topics including feminism and gender issues, religion, and the media. Follow her on Twitter @kyleezempel.