In some Republican circles, there was one great scandal during Joe Biden’s presidency that was simply unforgiveable. It had nothing to do with Hunter Biden or autopens. Rather, it was about social media content moderation.
During the Democratic administration, federal officials routinely communicated with social media companies, asking tech giants such as Facebook and Twitter (as it was known at the time) to help limit the spread of mis- and disinformation, especially from foreign sources.
The Biden White House never forced these companies to take down content, but it tried to work with the social media behemoths, flagging problematic content.
For many on the right, this was an outrageous abuse and a betrayal of the First Amendment. People must be allowed to communicate however they wish via social media, conservatives argued, without so much as a hint of interference from federal officials. If that means some people see mis- and disinformation, so be it. It’s a small price to pay for a free market of ideas.
And then Donald Trump returned to power, at which point Republicans completely changed their minds. The Washington Examiner reported:
Asked on Tuesday if the federal department should contact Facebook and social media companies to do more to stop the rampant misinformation and disinformation circulating online, DHS spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin told the Washington Examiner it would do just that. ‘Yes and we are also putting resources forward to ensure DHS combats this,’ McLaughlin wrote in an email.
McLaughlin, the assistant secretary at the Department of Homeland Security, went on to tell the conservative outlet, “It’s like an hourly game of whack-a-mole debunking the scourge of lies, smears and AI deepfakes that are designed to deceive Americans.”
As far as the Trump administration is concerned, there’s been a flood of fake reports, images and videos related to ICE and Border Patrol officials, and the DHS is coordinating with social media companies to remove content that federal officials don’t want Americans to see.
These latest efforts come roughly a month after Attorney General Pam Bondi boasted about the Justice Department’s successful “outreach” efforts to get Facebook to take down a group page featuring information about ICE operations in the Chicago area.
The nation’s chief law enforcement official added at the time that her department would “continue engaging” tech companies to “eliminate platforms” that the Republican administration deems dangerous.
In other words, when the Biden administration supported voluntary social media content moderation, it was an outrage worthy of many hours of congressional investigation and countless complaints from assorted conservative voices. When Team Trump does the same thing, it’s benign “outreach.” As for Facebook, it was just last year when Mark Zuckerberg, Meta’s CEO, told the Republican-led House Judiciary Committee how much he regretted cooperating with the Biden administration, adding that federal interference was a “wrong” move he’d fight in the future. “I feel strongly that we should not compromise our content standards due to pressure from any Administration in either direction — and we’re ready to push back if something like this happens again,” Zuckerberg said in August 2024. Evidently, he’s changed his mind, too. This post updates our related earlier coverage.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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