The un-censoring of online political speech
It was a natural correction, beginning with stances taken by Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk
Architects of modern political discourse
When it comes to online platforms’ influence over the shaping of public opinion, there are two real elephants in the room: Meta (Facebook, Instagram, and Threads) and X. Like most unfathomably wealthy individuals, both Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk have an arsenal of methods and resources to wield political influence. In the context of Silicon Valley elites, what’s unique to them is not merely the use of personal or corporate fortunes to meddle in politics.
Take billionaire Peter Thiel, for example—though far less wealthy than either, he has a rich history of playing political chess, from aiding Donald Trump’s rise to shaping the ascent of J.D. Vance. On the left, billionaire George Soros has profoundly shaped the political landscape through his extensive financial contributions to Democratic candidates and progressive causes—such as criminal justice reform and voting rights—via his Democracy PAC and Open Society Foundations.
Meanwhile, mega-cap companies like Alphabet, Microsoft, Apple, and Amazon maintain armies of lobbyists and legal teams, giving them a direct channel of influence on Capitol Hill. These methods are par for the course among Silicon Valley’s titans.
However, what sets Zuck and Elon apart from their peers, aside from inordinate personal wealth, is their respective proximities to the world’s largest digital information spigots as Meta and X oversee streaming faucets of engagement data with direct lines of sight to public perception, granting them unparalleled insight into the temperature of the collective subconsciousness. Even more consequentially, they hold the power to adjust that temperature—through algorithmic tilt, enforcing censorship, or allowing unfettered discourse—and effectively shape public narratives in ways other individuals and companies cannot.1
As the dust settles on the 2024 elections, one thing is clear: Zuckerberg and Musk have firmly established themselves as architects of modern discourse. This power makes their divergent approaches—Zuckerberg’s vow to remain hands-off and Elon’s dramatic shift toward a hands-on approach—during the 2024 political cycle all the more notable. The question is not whether their impact will endure but how it will shape the next chapter of political discourse in the democratic West.
The Hunter Biden laptop story
Let’s establish some facts.
Weeks before the 2020 election, The New York Post broke the story of Hunter Biden’s leaked laptop: rife with damning evidence of debauchery and emails detailing alleged corruption within the Biden family, it revealed documentation of then-presidential candidate Joe Biden’s kickbacks from his son’s dealings in Ukraine and China.
Upon the story’s dissemination and after consulting with senior Biden campaign officials, a collective “expert” statement was conceived. Over 50 former US intelligence officials signed a public letter claiming the material published by The Post from Hunter’s hard drive had “all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation," despite having no evidence of such claims.2
Following the letter, Facebook took steps to limit the story’s reach, a decision Zuckerberg later attributed to warnings from the FBI when he went on record in 2022 during an interview on The Joe Rogan Experience:
“The background here is that the FBI came to us - some folks on our team - and was like 'hey, just so you know, you should be on high alert. We thought there was a lot of Russian propaganda in the 2016 election, we have it on notice that basically there's about to be some kind of dump that's similar to that.'”
Congressional testimony last year revealed FBI employees who warned social media companies about a ‘hack and leak’ operation knew it wasn’t Russian disinformation:
Furthermore, and in no uncertain terms, then-House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-CA) cast the report as an elaborate Kremlin plot:
“We know that this whole smear on Joe Biden comes from the Kremlin. That’s been clear for well over a year now that they’ve been pushing this false narrative about the vice president and his son.”
As evidence has come to light, this claim has presented itself to be demonstrably false amounting to an objectionable lie made in bad faith. Schiff was just one of many, but I’ll spare you the exhausting diatribe on this being another page in the “Cry Russia!” playbook used by political actors—particularly, the establishment left—to discredit adversarial threats. (Is it happening again with the left’s rhetoric around Trump’s DNI appointment of Tulsi Gabbard?)
The point here is that as the truth has surfaced, public trust in both social media companies and the U.S. “intelligence community” has eroded due to their brazen and seemingly nefarious censorship efforts.
Despite no single component of The Post’s reporting ever having been debunked, efforts to dismiss and discredit the story culminated in what (at least from an optics standpoint) amounted to a censorship campaign orchestrated by the U.S. Intelligence Community to suppress a potentially election-altering narrative. Facebook played its part in these campaign efforts by demoting the story’s visibility on its platform, but they weren’t alone. Legacy Twitter went a step further, locking The New York Post’s account and preventing users from sharing the story’s link.3
As to whether The Post’s Hunter Biden laptop story was effectively suppressed, I say nay: awareness of the censorship efforts became quickly widespread, which drew perhaps even more attention toward the story itself. But it’s not unreasonable to suggest that the concerted efforts to discredit the story played a pivotal role in preventing it from influencing voters who may have otherwise reconsidered their choices—in other words, that the efforts undermined the story’s perceived credibility and that greater public belief in its authenticity could have tipped the scales on the election.
According to a 2022 poll conducted by the Technometrica Institute of Policy and Politics, 47% of respondents said that knowing the laptop contents were real would have changed their 2020 voting decision, including 71% of Democrat respondents. The poll also found that more than half—51% of respondents—give the media failing grades (D or F) for their coverage of the topic of the laptop.
Furthermore, a significant majority—79% of respondents—believed that access to the correct information would have changed the outcome of the 2020 election:
Of course, this is just one poll, and ex-post analysis is difficult to unambiguously validate. Still, I’m not convinced that the role of this interim “censorship industrial complex” in shaping the information landscape during the 2020 general election cycle was negligible, or that it failed to contribute to what some might consider voter deception. Whether or not this is empirically evident, the majority of the public may very well consider it to be.
The Censorship Industrial Complex(?)
The concept of a “censorship industrial complex” recently came under scrutiny in an extraordinary piece titled There is no "censorship industrial complex” by Cambridge PhD philosopher
. In this largely unobjectionable essay, Williams concedes:“Anti-censorship pundits point to various examples, including: Twitter’s “shadow banning” (i.e., soft censorship) of accounts like Covid contrarian Jay Bhattacharya and right-wing firebrand LibsofTikTok; the decision to remove Donald Trump from major social media platforms in the aftermath of January 6th; Meta’s temporary banning of any discussion of the idea that SARS‑CoV‑2 escaped from a Wuhan lab; and the decision by major social media companies to temporarily remove or reduce exposure to a New York Post story about the contents of Hunter Biden’s laptop in the run-up to the 2020 presidential election.
Such decisions are well-documented. Moreover, I think almost all such decisions were wrong, both because of general problems with censorship (even when it targets demonstrably false and harmful content) and because in some of these cases (e.g., the lab leak hypothesis, the New York Post story, and the arguments of Covid contrarians) the censored content was either accurate or debatable.”
Williams also acknowledges the merits of arguments made by those who raise concerns about a “censorship industrial complex.” He lends credence to complaints about private censorship (as mentioned above), government censorship, as well as other legitimate grievances raised by figures such as Michael Shellenberger,
, and others, particularly concerning the Election Integrity Partnership.However, the essay challenges the idea that private censorship alone constitutes a “censorship industrial complex,” asserting that such claims often hinge on conspiracy theories about covert government involvement:
“There are two problems with this narrative [that private censorship alone = a censorship industrial complex].
First, there is no compelling evidence that online censorship of the New York Post’s story cost Trump the 2020 election, any more than there is compelling evidence that Russian disinformation cost Hilary Clinton the 2016 one.
Second, although it is legitimate to criticise bad censorship decisions by influential private companies, such decisions do not qualify as “election interference”. And in fact, in Taibbi’s initial reporting on the story as part of the Twitter Files, he explicitly acknowledges that he found no evidence of government involvement in Twitter’s actions.
Given this, those who use the story as an example of a sinister “censorship industrial complex” are, once again, forced to rely on conspiracy theories about covert influence operations by government agencies.”
While I cannot, in good faith, mount a strong argument against these general criticisms—and I do not necessarily believe that the collusive effort to censor the Hunter Biden laptop story was tantamount to “election interference”—I do take exception to Williams' claims about the 2016 and 2020 elections. Both scenarios can coexist: online censorship of the Hunter Biden laptop story could have cost Trump the 2020 election, just as Russian disinformation could have cost Hillary Clinton the 2016 election. These scenarios are not mutually exclusive, even if they are at odds along partisan lines.
If we accept both scenarios, it becomes clear that the manipulation of public discourse—whether through private censorship, overt dismissal by government actors, or outright disinformation campaigns—played a role in shaping the outcomes of both elections.
From this perspective, overt government involvement in influencing public discourse was present, and such overt actions were no less impactful than covert ones might have been. The interference may not have come in the form of outright dismissal of the Hunter Biden laptop story but instead through efforts to discredit it, thereby shaping voters' perceptions of its authenticity.
While I agree with Williams that a truly “sinister” censorship industrial complex would necessitate active government participation, I argue that even overt, public government influence qualifies. Whether through visible or hidden actions, this influence was evident in both 2016 and 2020. The distinction between overt and covert operations becomes less relevant when the effects on public perception—and ultimately election outcomes—are the same.
This is where my view semantically diverges from Dan Williams’. I contend that overt government involvement in shaping online discourse still meets the threshold of a “censorship industrial complex.” And to be clear, my overarching contention is that such a complex:
Did exist, albeit intermittently, during the previous two election cycles;
Was publicly exposed, leading to widespread backlash and growing distrust in online media platforms; and
Has prompted a dramatic shift in the role of Big Tech—particularly social media companies—in U.S. elections, as evidenced in the 2024 cycle.
The term "censorship industrial complex" applies not only to covert or conspiratorial government actions but also to the overt mechanisms that influence public discourse. The scale of this manipulation—whether through discrediting stories or amplifying narratives—defines its existence, and its impact on democratic processes cannot be ignored.
Big Tech is in ideological correction mode
Even before the Trump-ifiying of the U.S. political landscape, Corporate America (historically right-leaning) had begun shifting leftward—albeit subtly, though, until Trump’s political presence from 2016 onward exacerbated the shift:
However, since the 2022 midterms, it we’ve witnessed a quite drastic rightward shift among tech executives within Silicon Valley:
The repolarization shift from 2020 to 2024 was driven by the reemergence of a strong conservative right faction—a significant rightward movement that drew support not only from moderates but also from individuals who were previously aligned with liberal positions.
What remains uncertain is whether this shift represents a cyclical regression or the beginning of a broader political realignment within Big Tech. Zuckerberg’s recent public reflections, juxtaposed with Elon Musk’s highly visible activities, suggest that Silicon Valley’s most influential figures are reassessing their role in shaping public discourse.
This matters because, at an organizational level—such as within Facebook’s leadership and team structures—social media companies are becoming more ideologically balanced and increasingly open to allowing all partisan perspectives to compete freely in the marketplace of ideas, unabated. And by unabated, I mean discourse that is free from both censorship and the so-called “fact checks,” which, while often claimed to be impartial, frequently exhibit significant bias:
When a social media post is fact-checked—whether in a biased manner or not—it is often justified with the slogan, “freedom of speech is not freedom of reach.” This practice, as Dan Williams argues, amounts to what he calls “informed” speech rather than outright censorship:
“Cases where social media companies deploy counter-speech, adding a label or context to claims (e.g., tweets, images, videos) deemed misleading. Such policies and their enforcement might be biased and objectionable in many ways, but (contra Shellenberger) do not amount to censorship on any reasonable interpretation of that term.”
Whatever label is applied—fact-checking, “informed speech,” or otherwise—it is evident that this practice has diminished on Meta’s platforms. Meanwhile, X has introduced a crowdsourced alternative called “Community Notes,” signaling a shift away from centralized content moderation toward a more decentralized, disintermediated, and participatory approach.
Zuck’s zigged while Elon’s zagged
Throughout the early years of Facebook, Zuckerberg was known for his support of liberal causes, including immigration reform and social justice, actively involved in political discussions and initiatives, and often leveraging his platform to advocate for these issues. But in the face of rising criticism, Zuckerberg has actively worked to distance himself (and Meta) from partisan politics, reporting himself as being more closely aligned with libertarian ideals.4
Behind the scenes, Zuck’s been working to improve relationships with politicians, particularly Republicans, hiring GOP strategist Brian Baker to enhance his standing with right-wing media and political officials.
In a letter sent before the 2024 election to the House Judiciary Committee, Zuckerberg acknowledged that his company "shouldn't have demoted" the laptop story while waiting for fact-checkers to review it. He also claimed in his letter that the Biden administration pressured Meta to censor certain COVID-19 content, expressing regret for not pushing back more against this pressure. Since going on record, Zuck’s enthusiasm for political engagement has diminished—both personally and as it relates to Meta’s policies.5
The broader implications of Zuckerberg’s stance—and its role in the 2024 election—remain uncertain. However, what’s clear is the immense power wielded by Meta’s platforms like Facebook and Instagram (and even Threads), where administrative neutrality itself might be wielding influence.
For example, during what many have called the “podcast election,” video clips from Donald Trump’s numerous appearances circulated widely on Meta’s platforms. Despite featuring demonstrably false claims—Trump-isms, or exaggerations spoken in exuberant absolutes—these clips were not seemingly actively demoted, fact-checked, or “informed,” as they might have been just a few years earlier, signaling a shift toward neutrality in how Meta handles politically sensitive content. Nevertheless, Trump-isms were freely fact-checked by prominent voices and news sources across all platforms.
Directionally parallel but in stark contrast to Zuck’s purported neutrality, there’s Elon Musk who now owns Twitter/X and has taken an incongruent approach: hitting the campaign trail and leveraging his platform to assist the Trump campaign in its efforts to reclaim the presidency.
Since famously buying Twitter for $44 billion in 2022, Musk has embarked on a mission to transform online discourse into a harbinger for uncensored free speech, and—to the extent his goal was to alleviate the platform’s ideological imbalances—he’s delivered on his mission, as the political tone on X has become far more ideologically reflective of the general electorate. At least, (left-leaning) CNN recently admitted as much:
Anecdotally, my experience on X throughout the election cycle felt like navigating a cesspool of apoplectic demagogues, but it was surprisingly balanced in terms of partisan representation. Now sure, it’s unnerving that Musk owns the very platform that he uses to express and amplify his own worldview. But it’s not as if his words and actions are unassailable; he’s had to perform many an about-face over the years based on reckless and untrue statements. (Lest we forget his 2018 ‘Funding secured’ Twitter post which eventually cost himself and Tesla shareholders billions of dollars.)
In a 2024 interview with The Economist, Musk emphasized the importance of authenticity in online discourse, stating, "Sure, you might say something silly once in a while, as I do, but that way people know it’s really you!"
In all fairness, Musk has consistently stated that his tweets are derived from his personal views. Is it wrong that he fleshes out his opinions on a platform he now owns and, to no small degree, can control? I don’t believe so, and there’s been no credible evidence of him suppressing dissident speech on X—anytime he tweets something controversial or factually incorrect, he’s publicly lambasted and his tweets are often slapped with a community note.
An October Newsweek report revealed that:
“Musk ranked 55 on Community Notes Leaderboard—a site which showcases the X users who have received the most notes. He had notched up 89 Community Notes.
By comparison TASS, a Russian state-owned news agency and the largest outlet in the country, ranked 59th, with 84 notes.”
If the lone fact that Musk’s words carry political sway is objectionable, then his words should be tested rigorously out in the open… which they are. And if Meta’s newfound neutrality is objectionable, well then I’d argue that Zuck’s hand was forced given the past transgressions of the now-dismantled “censorship industrial complex.”
Disintermediation of discourse across all platforms
The same argument holds against those insisting that Joe Rogan exerted undue influence on the election: Rogan’s influence stems not from manipulation or covert agendas but from the opposite—his willingness to publicly flesh out all his ideas, whether dumb or brilliant, over and over again.
Let’s not forget that his move from YouTube to Spotify was triggered by YouTube’s attempted censorship of his show’s content. Since then, Rogan’s political sway has only grown more significant because he’s publicly perceived as a beacon of free speech, not because his words are treated as gospel.
Still, some argue that this new paradigm unfairly benefits the conservative right. One notable proponent of this view is
, who, in her piece titled Why Democrats won't build their own Joe Rogan, claims:“Ultimately, there will never be a "Joe Rogan of the left" or "Nelk boys of the left" because there is no funding or institutional Democratic support to even begin to form such a network. There appears to be zero appetite from the Democratic party establishment to embrace left-leaning populist messaging and policies.”
While the second part of Lorenz’s statement is true, the misguided nature of her inference cannot be overstated:
The notion that Rogan is a right-leaning figure and was “embraced” by the Republican Party is a gross mischaracterization. Rogan isn’t right-leaning—he famously endorsed Bernie Sanders—aside from his advocacy for the Second Amendment, his opinions didn’t align with the conservative right’s until very recently when Democrats became a party coalesced around speech censorship.
The left’s inability to cultivate a Rogan-like figure was never a funding problem; it’s always been an authenticity problem. The idea that Democrats could create or “buy” a network of discourse as impactful as Rogan’s completely misses the point: Rogan’s influence stems from his independence—he was never financially or institutionally co-opted by a political establishment. This authenticity is precisely why his words, including his endorsement of Trump in 2024, carry weight and resonate with his massive audience.
Moreover, the idea that singular conservative voices like Joe Rogan or Elon Musk are solely responsible for a seismic shift in public opinion oversimplifies reality. Figures like Taylor Lorenz and others on the left attempt to pin this shift on a few prominent individuals, but the truth is far more nuanced.
Numerous formerly liberal voices—now considered conservative—such as David Sacks, Bill Ackman, Marc Andreessen, and many others, have risen through the ranks of those who, back when Twitter was Twitter, were granted the coveted blue checkmark. Their viewpoints happened to prevail during this election cycle, even in the face of public scrutiny from prominent figures like Mark Cuban,
, Krystal Ball, and many others who remained staunchly left-leaning.The progressive left’s failure to recognize the electorate’s broadening appetite for disintermediated political discourse was, in my view, a critical factor in driving the un-censoring of it. While Taylor Lorenz’s arguments are preposterous (if not outright whiny), I argue that the tone, tenor, and substance of speech across social media—once arbitrarily manipulated, skewed, and at times, censored—have shifted toward a freer, more disintermediated organic model. And rightfully so, as flaws in the old model of speech intermediation became evident.
Internet speech has (naturally) become uncensored
Over the most recent political cycle, a repudiation of censorship has manifested in two distinct ways: Zuckerberg reacted to the backfiring of his complicity in censorship with a vow of neutrality, while Musk reacted by purchasing the very source of censorship. Both actions have worked to reverse the course of censorship, at least as it pertains to social media political discourse.
The disclaimer for engaging with political content on social media is no longer an institutionally imposed fact-checking footnote, but rather an unspoken, broadly understood acknowledgment: social media feeds are teeming with ideologues and demagogues, all vying to shape perceptions by spinning the truth. It is incumbent upon discerning users to shape their own understanding of online content.
In my view, Zuckerberg and Musk are each progressing along their natural and respective trajectories. It is fitting that platforms like Facebook and Instagram—image- and video-centric, with a lifestyle-oriented focus—are retreating from the political fray, while text-based and news-oriented platforms such as X, and even more appropriately, Substack, take the lead in facilitating political discourse.6
This structural shift reflects a natural response to past controversies, marked by a broader disintermediation of truth. The revelations about undue censorship were simply the writing on the wall, signaling the need for change in the first place.
The future of online political discourse will favor the most seemingly independent and disintermediated voices, as these will resonate most strongly with audiences. Platforms that foster a balanced exchange of ideas—harbors of ideological counterbalance—will become central to the future of public debate. Zuckerberg and Musk, though employing divergent methods, have each contributed to laying the groundwork for this new paradigm.
Yet, isn’t this the enduring paradox of the proverbial “town square,” that the narratives disseminated there have always been subject to contestation, shaped by bias, and weaponized by those seeking influence? What has changed is not the paradox itself, but the sheer scale and velocity at which these narratives now spread, amplifying both the promise and peril of free expression in our digital age. In the realm of political discourse, avoiding the perils of free expression demands a vigilant electorate—just as it always has.
Meta and X are the major players, of course aside from Google, which is in a league of its own regarding it’s ability to shape-shift public perception through the leveraging of ephemeral data (suggestions in Search, YouTube, and beyond).
According to a June 2024 House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence report, some of the signatories of the statement were on the CIA payroll at the time as contractors and others had special access to CIA facilities. The highest officials within the CIA were aware of the statement prior to its publication. CIA’s Chief Operating Officer (COO) Andrew Makridis testified that he informed Director Gina Haspel or Deputy Director Vaughn Frederick Bishop about its impending release.
Both platforms restricted access and froze then-President Trump’s campaign account following the events of January 6th.
Recall the $400 million Zuckerberg donated via his philanthropic Chan Zuckerberg Initiative which was intended to help government offices conduct the election during the pandemic. and criticism he received from Republicans over these donations which they dubbed "Zuckerbucks".
Some may ask: is Zuckerberg truly staying neutral, or is this merely a strategic recalibration cloaked in the guise of neutrality? While his recent admission suggests a degree of introspection, it raises legitimate questions about how Meta plans to balance its extraordinary influence with Zuckerberg’s purported detachment.
The NY Times reported that Elon made an attempt to buy Substack earlier this year.