In the middle of a historic trial with the Federal Trade Commission that could break up Meta and fracture the company, the New York Post broke a story about how Meta contacted one of its top critics, MRC’s own Dan Schneider, in what appeared to be a desperate attempt to salvage its situation.
The New York Post highlighted MRC’s leadership and influence in the free speech fight in a Monday article, detailing how Schneider received a phone call from Meta just before its antitrust lawsuit with the FTC. “On the eve of this trial that could have severe ramifications for Meta, [the company official] was throwing a ‘hail Mary’ pass to see if one of its chief critics would run cover for them in some way,” Schneider said. The call came after years of MRC’s frontline efforts holding Meta—and every other major social media company—accountable for their reckless disregard for the First Amendment.
MRC Vice President David Bozell emphasized the significance of Meta’s reaction:
I’ve worked alongside Dan and the Free Speech America team long enough to know they’re serious about this fight. Big Tech, the censorship machine, the deep state—MRC keeps pulling back the curtain. Meta knows we’re not going away. We’re steady, we’re focused, and we’re not letting up.
Schneider clarified to the New York Post, “It’s not accurate to say that [the official] asked me to do something … I think it’s clearly accurate that they were hoping I was going to do something.”
After Meta announced it would end its fact-checking program and cut back on censoring users, MRC shared some improvements it has seen in Facebook and Instagram traffic. MRC, however, warned that the free speech movement is far from trusting Meta—not until the company shows a serious and consistent commitment to free speech and provides restitution for past censorship, which it has not yet done.
For instance, MRC called out Instagram’s “School Partnership Program,” which was designed to censor student-created content by emboldening educators to report “potential teen safety issues, including bullying, directly to [Meta].”
MRC has also repeatedly criticized the Meta Oversight Board for promoting European-style censorship.
In January 2023, the Board infamously criticized Meta’s decision to reinstate President Donald Trump’s accounts. More recently, the Board overturned Meta in multiple cases concerning users in the U.K., Germany and Poland who criticized mass illegal migration. In February, the Board even bashed Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s free speech reforms, including Meta’s abandonment of independent fact-checkers in favor of crowd-sourced fact-checking via community notes.
Meta also has a history of changing its policies in favor of free speech during or right after an election cycle and then continuing to censor users.
Meta’s transition to community notes following the 2024 election is not the first time it has changed its fact-checking practices after Americans elected new representatives to Washington. During the 2020 election, Facebook executive Nick Clegg said the platform wouldn’t fact-check politicians running for office in 2020 while it continued to censor candidates and their PACs. The platform also blocked new political ads the week before the election because it could not fact-check them fast enough.
MRC detailed much of Meta’s election-interfering censorship in its report “39 Times Facebook Interfered in US Elections Since 2008.”
MRC Free Speech America contractor and contributor Catherine Salgado contributed to this report.
Free speech is under attack. Contact Meta and other tech companies and encourage them to continue to push for more pro-American, pro-free speech policies. Let the platforms know that the American people will continue to be vigilant to keep a watchful eye on changes that might show a return to tech's recent, not-easily-forgotten anti-free speech past.
