• Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced Tuesday that the company plans to end its fact-checking program as part of a broader overhaul of how it moderates content on Facebook, Instagram, and Threads. In a video, Zuckerberg said the move was an effort to prioritize “free expression” and called the 2024 election a “cultural tipping point.” It was a notable policy shift ahead of President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration in a little more than week. Jason Koebler, co-founder of the tech website 404 Media, breaks down why the tech elites are sucking up to Trump.
• And in headlines: U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon temporarily blocked the Justice Department from releasing Special Counsel Jack Smith’s report on his investigations into Trump, Trump doesn’t rule out using military force to acquire Greenland and the Panama Canal, and the conservative North Carolina Supreme Court blocked certifying the election results of one of its Democratic colleagues.

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TRANSCRIPT

Jane Coaston: It’s Wednesday, January 8th. I’m Jane Coaston. And this is What a Day, the show where I’m asking Mark Zuckerberg, hey, how exactly do Trump’s boots taste? [music break] On today’s show, Trump gives his first presser of the new year. And of course, he had a lot to say. And two murderers on death row tell President Biden to keep his commutation. Let’s get into it. META CEO Mark Zuckerberg says that the company is changing the way it moderates content on its platforms, Facebook, Instagram and Threads. In a video he posted Tuesday, Zuckerberg said the company is going to prioritize, quote, “free expression” by dismantling the fact checking program it started to curb misinformation. Zuckerberg pointed to President elect Trump’s win as a reason for the change. 

[clip of Mark Zuckerberg] The recent elections also feel like a cultural tipping point towards once again prioritizing speech. So we’re gonna get back to our roots and focus on reducing mistakes, simplifying our policies, and restoring free expression on our platforms. 

Jane Coaston: Zuckerberg says that instead of using news organizations and other third party groups to fact check content, META will leave it up to users to flag false or misleading information in community notes, just like the policy Trump’s first buddy Elon Musk, implemented over at Twitter. Holocaust Denial? Just a new opportunity for fun conversations on the Internet. Zuckerberg even admitted that more problematic content will now appear on META’s platforms. 

[clip of Mark Zuckerberg] The reality is that this is a tradeoff. It means we’re going to catch less bad stuff, but we’ll also reduce the number of innocent people’s posts and accounts that we accidentally take down. 

Jane Coaston: What could go wrong? Zuckerberg’s announcement comes one day after META taps Trump ally and Ultimate Fighting Championship president Dana White to join its board of directors. And during a rambling, some might say unhinged press conference that we’ll tell you more about later in the show, Trump said that he watched Zuckerberg’s video and took credit for his decisions. 

[clip of President elect Donald Trump] I think they’ve come a long way, META, Facebook. I think they’ve come a long way. I watched it. The man was very impressive. I watched it actually I watched it on Fox. I’m not allowed to say that. [indistinct voice in background] Say it. 

[unknown speaker] Do you think he’s directly responding to the threats that you have made to him in the past with [?].

[clip of President elect Donald Trump] Probably. 

Jane Coaston: If it seems like a lot of the tech sphere has done an about face on Trump in the last year or so, it’s because it has. This fact checking program META is dismantling, it was started after the 2016 election. You know, back when fake news was a real thing. Macedonian troll farms and not just stories Trump doesn’t like, but how much of what META and other tech platforms are doing here is bending the knee to Trump versus the time honored tradition of corporate leaders cozying up to the people in power so they can get lawmakers to do what they want. For more on this, I spoke with Jason Koebler. He’s the co-founder of the tech website 404 Media. We talked about Zuck’s move away from content moderation and why the tech elite are sucking up to Trump. Jason, welcome back to What a Day. 

Jason Koebler: Hey, thanks for having me. 

Jane Coaston: So, okay, what is actually happening here? What is actually going to change about content moderation on META products? 

Jason Koebler: Well, a lot of things seemingly, um and yet also maybe not that much because META’s content moderation had fallen into such disrepair and the enforcement was kind of all over the place. But they are now sort of officially loosening a lot of the rules that they’ve implemented over the last few years. Most notably, they are going to allow more political speech, is what they’re saying. But what that means in practice is you’ll now be able to say bad things about LGBTQ people and immigrants, and that will be officially within the bounds of what is allowed on META platforms. Like quite literally, they’ve rewritten written the rules to allow people to say, for example, that being trans is a mental illness, which has been, you know, repeatedly disproven by science. Um.

Jane Coaston: Right. 

Jason Koebler: But that will now specifically be allowed uh to sort of, quote, “more align with the real conversations that are happening in the United States,” according to Mark Zuckerberg. So that’s happening. Uh. The fact checking program is ending, which was this situation where META had contracted with these third party fact checkers who would add sort of like a note to news stories that were wrong. Um. This is going to be replaced with a community notes system very similar to what is on X at this point. And then just sort of like more broadly, there’s going to be a lot less enforcement against content across all META platforms. 

Jane Coaston: What will the impact be on the moderation teams that deal with violent content uploads or child sexual abuse videos that are uploaded by the thousands every single day? Like there are moderation teams where all they do is take down videos of people murdering cats. I’m very serious. That’s a thing that they have to deal with and it’s really, really hard and terrible work. But what about them? 

Jason Koebler: Yeah. So they haven’t gotten rid of all rules. Uh. Notably, you’re still not allowed to be a Nazi on META platforms like the rules that prevent glorifying literal Naziism or like posting a swastika still exist as are rules that Facebook implemented a few years ago about like overtly white supremacist or white nationalist content. Like those rules still exist. It will be interesting for me as a journalist to see whether they continue to take that type of content down or whether people feel emboldened because Mark Zuckerberg has declared META platforms a free speech zone, for lack of a better term. Whether there’s like a lot more of that type of content being posted because when Elon Musk did something very similar with Twitter, he signaled as the, you know, chief overlord of Twitter that he was going to allow this sort of content, he was going to allow white supremacist content, um you know, far right content. And the effect is that Twitter still has some rules that ban some of this stuff. But in practice, they’re not enforced really at all. And now, you know, Mark Zuckerberg has signaled that he does not want to take down a lot of content. And I think that will be a signal to people on the far right, like go post whatever you want on Facebook and see what happens. 

Jane Coaston: This looks like a pretty obvious quid pro quo for Trump. Zuckerberg shuts down fact checking. Trump stops threatening Meta. Is it? 

Jason Koebler: In my opinion, yes. I mean, I think it it’s extremely wild that The New York Times ran an article a few months ago saying specifically that Mark Zuckerberg was leaving politics like he didn’t want to talk about politics anymore. And since then, Zuckerberg has visited Mar-a-Lago. He has donated $1 million to Donald Trump’s inauguration campaign. He’s elevated Joel Kaplan, who worked in the George W. Bush administration, to be sort of head of global policy. Uh. And then he has said we are going to not take a lot of action on political speech. I don’t think it’s any uh coincidence that all of those actions are a shift rightward, a shift to be more in line with the Trump administration and what Donald Trump himself specifically wants. You know, Mark Zuckerberg has said that he thinks it was a mistake to ban Donald Trump in the aftermath of January 6th. Um. I think what we’re seeing here is really like Zuckerberg kissing the ring. 

Jane Coaston: META was one of the companies that was really cheerleading, making changes to Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. And I bring that up because Section 230 is the means by which you can’t sue a platform because of what somebody else posted on that platform. This has come up again and again with Instagram, with Facebook, probably with Threads if more people used threads. And part of the argument META used was that they were one of the few companies big enough to deal with a lawsuit such changes would bring because they could have so many moderators that would be all over this. What’s going to happen there, do you think? 

Jason Koebler: Yeah, I mean, I think it really depends on how far down the road of Silicon Valley tech oligarchy this administration actually goes. But I really do think that with something like Section 230, any sort of regulatory regime, any tweaks to Section 230 are likely going to be driven by tech lobbyists. I haven’t seen a lot of appetite in Congress to actually reform Section 230 in a way that would hold these platforms accountable. And I find it very unlikely that these tech companies are going to face stricter regulatory scrutiny under the Trump administration than they did under the Biden administration, especially with the FTC chair being Lina Khan, who was really, really good on things like antitrust and big tech power. 

Jane Coaston: I think uh speaking of the FTC, the FTC is also suing META because it says that it broke antitrust laws when it acquired Instagram and WhatsApp. And the trial is scheduled to start in April. Does all of this change, especially if the FTC is run by somebody Trump picks, even though there are lots of populists who really like Lina Khan, does all of this change the calculus on that lawsuit, on that trial? 

Jason Koebler: I think everything is up in the air, to be totally honest with you. I think the TikTok ban is up in the air. I think that the various monopoly lawsuits against Google and META are up in the air. There’s also one against Amazon. Um. We’ve seen Silicon Valley really try to cozy up to this administration in a way that we have never seen before. And these are very powerful companies. Trump is very easily influenced and they’re all trying to become buddy buddy with him right now. I think it’s entirely possible that some of these lawsuits are totally dropped. But it’s hard to make a prediction because I think that I don’t know what Trump administration 2.0 is going to look like uh regulations wise, given that during the first administration, a lot of these tech companies were almost part of a resistance to Trump, whereas now all bets are off. 

Jane Coaston: Jason as always, thank you so much for joining me. 

Jason Koebler: Yeah, thanks so much for having me. 

Jane Coaston: That was my conversation with Jason Koebler. He’s the co-founder of the tech website 404 Media. We’ll get to more of the news in a moment. But if you like the show, make sure to subscribe. Leave a five star review on Apple Podcasts. Watch us on YouTube and share with your friends. More to come after some ads. [music break]

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Jane Coaston: And now the news. 

[sung] Headlines. 

[clip of President elect Donald Trump] They’re not allowed to issue the report. So if they’re not allowed to issue the report, that’s the way it should be. 

Jane Coaston: U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon temporarily blocked the Justice Department from releasing Special Counsel Jack Smith’s report on investigations into Donald Trump. Cannon, who oversaw the classified documents case against the president elect, made the decision after two of Trump’s co-defendants in the case asked her to stop the report’s release. Who knew she had the power to do this? Hmm. The Tuesday ruling means Smith’s final report will be blocked from the public until an appeals court reviews the motion. Trump’s co-defendants claim Smith doesn’t have the authority to release the report since Cannon previously ruled Smith’s special counsel appointment was unlawful. Trump reacted to the news at the aforementioned Mar-A-Lago press conference. 

[clip of President elect Donald Trump] Why should he be allowed to write a fake report? It’ll only be a fake report. That’s great news. Good. 

Jane Coaston: The fake report, it’s expected to include decisions made by Smith in both Trump’s classified documents case and Trump’s efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election. Trump’s appeal to postpone his hush money sentencing was denied, and is scheduled for Friday. 

[clip of Leah Litman] Today, the Republican justices on the North Carolina Supreme Court issued a super concerning five alarm fire order in a case about the Republican candidate, for North Carolina Supreme Court justice’s attempts to steal an election. 

Jane Coaston: That’s Crooked’s own Leah Litman, host of Strict Scrutiny, talking about the North Carolina Supreme Court’s decision Tuesday to block election results certification for one of its own justices. The losing candidate, a Republican, challenged the election results and has asked that 60,000 ballots not be counted because voters did not provide their driver’s license numbers or the last four digits of their Social Security numbers. The November race was close. The Democratic justice won reelection by just 734 votes. Unless a federal appeals court intervenes, the Republican led North Carolina Supreme Court will basically get to decide for itself who wins the seat. The drama over Trump’s countless batshit cabinet picks is about to level up. Over the next few weeks, the Senate will hold confirmation hearings for RFK Jr., Pete Hegseth, Dr. Oz and more. But at least one of those hearings has already been delayed. On Tuesday, Senate Democrats pushed back Tulsi Gabbard’s confirmation for national intelligence director, which was supposed to start next week. They say she hasn’t given them the necessary vetting materials, including her FBI background check and ethics disclosure. Gabbard, a former U.S. representative from Hawaii who ran for president as a Democrat in 2020 before leaving the party because of the woke mind virus or something, has been making the rounds on Capitol Hill, trying to gather support among senators. Here she is on Tuesday, speaking to reporters after a meeting with Alabama Republican Tommy Tuberville. 

[clip of Tulsi Gabbard] We’ve extended invitations to obviously all the democrats on the committee and others, not on the committee. And I look forward to meeting with with all who choose to accept the invite. 

Jane Coaston: One of those Democrats, Senator Mark Warner of Virginia, met with Gabbard this week. Warner, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, did not seem impressed. He said, quote, “I had questions going in. I have questions going out.” So do we all. Two inmates on death row whose sentences were commuted by President Biden are trying to reject their clemency. Biden reclassified the sentences of 37 federal inmates in December, from execution to life in prison without parole. But two inmates at the U.S. penitentiary in Indiana, Shannon Agofsky and Len Davis, won’t sign the clemency paperwork. Both claim clemency will mess up their chances in appealing their cases as they try to prove their innocence. Indiana’s Southern District Federal Court says the pair filed emergency motions to block the commutations December 30th. Yet according to a 1927 Supreme Court ruling, a president can commute a death sentence without the inmates consent. The executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center backed this up, saying, quote, “The president’s power to commute their death sentences is grounded in his constitutional authority and is absolute.” Davis and Agofsky were sentenced to death for murder. Agofsky wrote in his filing, he, quote, “merely wishes for his case to play out in court as it was meant to.” And that’s the news. [music break] One more thing. Do you remember the 2024 presidential election? You know, the one in November of last year? Sure you do. It was a big deal. I talked about it a lot. And a lot of people said it hinged on one specific issue. Here’s Fox News. 

[clip of unnamed Fox News reporter] That’s what it comes down to. It’s the economy, stupid. It was in 1992. It is again, it’s not that complicated. If you can’t afford groceries, you don’t really care that much about democracy or other things. 

Jane Coaston: And here’s MSNBC. 

[clip of unnamed MSNBC reporter] To say that the economy is good when people still think the price of eggs is too damn high, is is not a winning message. 

Jane Coaston: So, yeah, many people argued that Donald Trump won the presidential election because everyday people were feeling very real economic pressures, including the price of goods like bread, milk, and eggs. So what is Donald Trump going to do about it? Apparently invade Panama and Greenland. As he told reporters during his Mar-a-Lago press conference. And when a reporter asked if he was going to use military or economic coercion to get his way, well, he didn’t say no. 

[clip of President elect Donald Trump] I can say this. We need them for economic security. The Panama Canal was built for our military. [indistinct voice in background] I’m not going to commit to that now. It might it might be that he’ll have to do something. 

Jane Coaston: Sure. Economic security. Yes. The Panama Canal is very important to trade, and Greenland has lots of natural resources. But seriously, did anyone, anyone at all vote for Trump because he was going to seize the Panama Canal? Like, think about it for a second. He thinks, or at least wants us to think that he thinks that sending troops, American soldiers to invade Panama and Greenland is a good idea. Spending billions of dollars to do stuff that literally not one person who isn’t a member of the Trump family thinks is a good idea. And yes, for history pendants, I know that annexing Greenland has come up before, but let’s be serious here. You’re not Fox News. Let’s do Manifest Destiny again for reasons might be fun for some people, but what does any of this have to do with the price of eggs? Remember that? Remember how that was, like, a really big deal? Remember the kitchen table issues Americans care about? Yeah. Neither does Trump. As I’ve said on the show previously, I have a general rule with Trump, which is the we’ll be looking at that very closely rule. Remember how during his first term, some journalist would ask him the most bananas thing you’d ever heard? He’d say, we’ll be looking at that very closely. And the entire press corps would chase it for a week. Yeah, we’re not doing that on this show. Annexing Greenland and the Panama Canal are most likely not going to happen because all of the people who would need to support it for it to happen all think it’s stupid. Like the president of Panama. You know where the Panama Canal is. But I just keep thinking, what is this doing to lower the price of eggs, bread, milk, other consumer goods, rent, the cost of a home. What does any of this, Panama, Greenland, his long and boring rant about the 1980 presidential election have to do with you, the American voter? If Democrats missed the boat on voter concerns, then pardon my French, what the fuck is this? [music break]

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Jane Coaston: That’s all for today. If you like the show, make sure you subscribe. Leave a review. Pray for our brave soldiers about to be deployed to the shores of Greenland and tell your friends to listen. And if you’re into reading, and not just about on set Hollywood drama that reminds me that guys who talk a lot about being proud feminists are way too often giant assholes in their actual life, like me, What a Day is also a nightly newsletter. Check it out and subscribe at Crooked.com/subscribe. I’m Jane Coaston. And facts don’t care about your feelings, Mark. [music break] What a Day is a production of Crooked Media. It’s recorded and mixed by Desmond Taylor. Our associate producers are Raven Yamamoto and Emily Fohr. Our producer is Michell Eloy. We had production help today from Tyler Hill, Johanna Case, Joseph Dutra, Greg Walters and Julia Claire. Our senior producer is Erica Morrison and our executive producer is Adriene Hill. Our theme music is by Colin Gilliard and Kashaka. [music break]

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