On Jan. 7, 2025, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced that the parent company of Facebook and Instagram would end its controversial partnership with outside fact-checking organizations. 

In a video, Zuckerberg admitted that Meta’s content moderation methods largely resulted in acts of flagrant censorship. “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,” Zuckerberg highlighted. “But the fact checkers have just been too politically biased and have destroyed more trust than they’ve created, especially in the U.S.”

During the 2020 election cycle, especially at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, Facebook’s censorship campaign was on full display. On the Jan. 10, 2025 episode of The Joe Rogan Experience, Zuckerberg described the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak of 2020 as a “very tricky” situation.  During the outset of the pandemic, Zuckerberg believed that it was ok to “give a little bit of deference to the government and the health authorities on how we should play this.”  

However, the censorship demands with Joe Biden as president soon became too unwieldy for Zuckerberg and company. Zuckerberg admitted to host Joe Rogan that censorship on Facebook and Instagram was at its peak during “the Biden administration, when they were trying to roll out the vaccine program.”

“And they pushed us super hard to take down things that, honestly, were true,” Zuckerberg continued. “They basically pushed us and said, ‘Anything that says that vaccines might have side effects, you basically need to take down.”

After Biden’s highly contested victory in 2020, a Big Tech censorship spree took place. The Jan. 6,  2021, storming of the U.S. Capitol prompted Facebook, in addition to its Big Tech counterparts in Twitter and YouTube, to kick Trump off their platforms. However, Facebook ended up letting Trump back on the platform for his 2024 presidential run. 

Meta has built a nasty reputation for its censorship schemes since Trump was first elected in 2016 up until 2024. From PolitiFact erroneously issuing a fact-check that falsely claimed Kyle Rittenhouse illegally possessed his firearm during his defensive gun use case in 2020 to its decision to obscure Joe Biden’s anti-gun proposal of banning 9mm pistols, Facebook has repeatedly made it clear it is no friend of pro-gun causes. 

In a similar vein, Facebook has demonstrated its willingness to kowtow to government demands. DC politicians know that free speech projections remain strong in the United States, so they use the indirect strategy of “jawboning” — using the threat of government power to compel social media companies to engage in censorship. The simultaneous censorship of Infowars in 2018 at the hands of Apple, Facebook, and Google shortly after Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) published a memo threatening to crack down on Big Tech companies who aren’t proactively censoring divisive content online showcased the frightening power of jawboning. 

With all due respect to Zuckerberg, exercising any form of “deference” to the government is a losing endeavor, given the government’s penchant to grow and encroach on liberties. Even the slightest compromise, makes the prettiest of tyrants giddy, knowing full well that they have a new mechanism for their continual transgression on our rights. 

Some people will speculate as to why Zuckerberg is having this abrupt change of heart. The influence of Meta board members such as billionaire venture capitalist Peter Thiel and technology entrepreneur Marc Andreessen, who both view government overreach with a skeptical eye, may have played a role in Zuckerberg’s change of opinion. 

Though it’s more likely that the Meta founder is trying to get in the good graces of Trump and the more populist-oriented Republican Party that is no longer as slavishly devoted to Big Business. The present-day Republican Party is even willing to use state power to rein in the excesses of Big Tech, as seen in the case of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton successfully obtaining a $1.4 billion settlement from Meta last summer over its illegal capture of personal biometric data.  

Zuckerberg changing his behavior in a more pro-freedom direction is a welcome development but gun owners would be wise to not interpret the Big Tech magnate’s changing behavior as a sign that he has fully learned the error of his ways. 

The Big Tech magnate is clearly rebranding his public image. On last year’s Independence Day, the Meta CEO posted a video on Instagram showing him surfing as he wore a tuxedo and held a U.S. flag. In a similar vein, Zuckerberg has been hitting the gym hard and training with MMA fighters such as Alexander Volkanovski and Israel Adesanya as part of his efforts to reinvent himself in the public eye.

For gun owners who are genuinely concerned about the preservation of their freedoms, the last things they should be worried about are Zuckerberg’s lifestyle changes. What matters most are Zuckerberg’s content moderation policies and his willingness to capitulate to government pressure to censor pro-gun content. The rest is superficial cosmetics.

We must not forget Meta recently censored legendary pro-gun manufacturer Smith & Wesson. Moreover, Meta has not made any explicit commitments to defending pro-gun content. 

Now is not the time to grow complacent or assume that Big Tech oligarchs will be our white knights. Yes, even Elon Musk, who has largely maintained free speech on X/Twitter, should not be blindly trusted. Billionaire tycoons have their own agendas and can flip on a dime if the political circumstances necessitate it.

Constant vigilance is of the essence to ensure Second Amendment freedoms remain intact in the face of growing private and public sector threats. More importantly, the creation of an “Internet Bill of Rights”, wherein free speech is no longer subject to corporate or government censorship, will go a long way to safeguard gun rights against the unconventional threats of the 21st century. 

One thing is certain: It’s going to take more than just a clever public relations campaign for Big Tech giants to restore trust with the Second Amendment community.

About José Niño

José Niño is a freelance writer based in Austin, Texas. You can contact him via Facebook and X/Twitter. Subscribe to his Substack newsletter by visiting “Jose Nino Unfiltered” on Substack.com.