Business
Facebook’s New Free Speech Policy Shows Business Getting Back to Business

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Big tech seems to be getting out of the censorship business, and it’s about time. After years of increasingly awkward attempts to placate demands from activist groups and the government to suppress allegedly hateful speech and an amorphous category of “disinformation,” Facebook owner Meta is joining X (formerly Twitter) in substituting user-generated community notes on contested posts for top-down muzzling. There’s no doubt that political shifts in the U.S. heavily influenced the rediscovery of respect for free speech. But whatever the reason, we should celebrate the change and work to make it permanent.
Succumbing to Pressure To Censor
“After Trump first got elected in 2016, the legacy media wrote nonstop about how misinformation was a threat to democracy,” Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced in a January 7 video. “We tried in good faith to address those concerns without becoming the arbiters of truth. But the fact-checkers have just been too politically biased and have destroyed more trust than they’ve created, especially in the U.S.”
“What started as a movement to be more inclusive has increasingly been used to shut down opinions and shut out people with different ideas, and it’s gone too far,” he added.
The implication here is that Zuckerberg and company succumbed to pressure to suppress speech disfavored by the bien pensant class, but rather than satisfying critics, that just fed demand to memory-hole ever more discussion and ideas. The ranks of those demanding that Facebook act as a censor also expanded and became more ominous.
“Even the U.S. government has pushed for censorship,” Zuckerberg noted. “By going after us and other American companies, it has emboldened other governments to go even further.”
This isn’t the first time the Meta CEO has cited government pressure to act as an end-run around the First Amendment’s protections for speech. In an August 26, 2024, letter to the House Judiciary Committee, he revealed that “senior officials from the Biden administration, including the White House, repeatedly pressured our teams for months to censor certain COVID-19 content, including humor and satire.” He also admitted to suppressing reports about Hunter Biden’s laptop at the FBI’s request.
Succumbing to Pressure for Free Speech
By the time of that letter, the backlash against social media censorship was well underway. Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter (now X) led to the publication of the Twitter files, revealing government pressure on the platform to suppress dissenting ideas. The Facebook files revealed the same of Zuckerberg’s company. U.S. District Court Judge Terry Doughty wrote that government pressure on tech platforms “arguably involves the most massive attack against free speech in United States’ history.” These revelations vindicated complaints by critics of pandemic policy, conservatives, libertarians, and other dissenters that their efforts to communicate were being deleted, shadow-banned, and otherwise censored.
As early as 2020, Pew Research pollsters found “roughly three-quarters of U.S. adults say it is very (37%) or somewhat (36%) likely that social media sites intentionally censor political viewpoints that they find objectionable.”
Which is to say, tech companies’ efforts to escape pressure over allowing users to publish “misinformation” wildly backfired. They came under more pressure than ever from those who objected—often rightly—that they were just trying to share information that others didn’t like.
If pressure led to censorship, it has also led to its reversal. That’s especially clear as Republicans pushed to allow lawsuits over online muzzling and then-candidate (now President-elect) Donald Trump thuggishly threatened Zuckerberg with “life in prison” for his company’s activities.
Zuckerberg even acknowledges bowing to shifting political winds, saying, “the recent elections also feel like a cultural tipping point towards once again prioritizing speech.”
Whatever Mark Zuckerberg’s actual beliefs about freedom of speech, having once given in to political pressure to censor, he’s now succumbing to political pressure to end censorship. As journalist and date-cruncher Nate Silver puts it, “perhaps it’s the right move for the wrong reasons.” It’s quite likely that the Meta CEO’s motivations are pragmatic rather than principled. But at least he’s making the right move.
Zuckerberg now says he’ll follow in the footsteps of Elon Musk, who was the first tech tycoon to push back against pressures for censorship, first in public statements and then in his acquisition of Twitter.
“First, we’re going to get rid of fact-checkers and replace them with community notes, similar to X, starting in the U.S.,” he noted in his video statement. He also promised to get rid of restrictions on “topics like immigration and gender” that were previously subject to scrutiny for alleged wrongthink, focus the attention of automated filters on explicitly illegal content rather than general discourse, and stop deemphasizing political content. Facebook will also move its moderation teams out of the ideological hothouse of California to Texas—arguably just a different ideological hothouse, though one better aligned with a country that just voted as it did and generally favors free speech over Big Brother.
Meta Joins Other Companies, Steps Back from Political Alliances
In backing away from a default affiliation with one faction of American politics as well as the government, Zuckerberg joins not just Musk but also executives at other companies who are jettisoning brief flirtations with trendy causes.
“Walmart is ending some of its diversity programs, the latest big company to shift gears under pressure from a conservative activist,” The Wall Street Journal’s Sarah Nassauer reported in November. The article attributed the shift to public pressure which “has successfully nudged other companies including retailer Tractor Supply and manufacturers Ford and Deere to back away from diversity efforts and other topics.”
That report came after the election put Republicans back on top, but the cultural winds had already shifted direction. Bloomberg reported in March that “Wall Street’s DEI retreat has officially begun.” A few months later, the financial news service noted a decline in interest in environmental, social, and governance investment guidelines associated, like DEI, with the political left.
As in Zuckerberg’s case, it’s not obvious that the business executives in question had a sincere commitment to the causes they now reject, or that their principles, should they have any, have changed. Instead, they seem to belatedly recognize that allying with one faction in a divided society inevitably alienates others. That’s dangerous when the fortunes of factions inevitably rise and fall, and when potential customers can be found across the political spectrum.
By taking their companies out of the political fray and acknowledging their customers’ right to disagree with one another and with the government, Mark Zuckerberg and other business leaders can leave us room to work out our differences in a free society without worrying so much whether the people to whom we give our money are friends or foes.
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Business
U.S. Seizes Fentanyl Shipment From Canada In Seattle, As Washington Pressures Ottawa on Crime Networks

U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers have intercepted a shipment containing more than one pound of fentanyl from Canada, marking the latest sign of an accelerating crisis along the BC-Washington border. The fentanyl, concealed within a package believed to have originated in British Columbia, was discovered during a targeted enforcement operation at a Seattle shipping facility on February 6.
The package contained a brown, rock-like substance wrapped in plastic bags. Subsequent testing confirmed it was fentanyl, the synthetic opioid driving tens of thousands of overdose deaths in North America each year.
Area Port Director Rene Ortega, speaking about the seizure, underscored its broader implications. “Fentanyl is an extremely dangerous synthetic drug that continues to devastate communities across the United States,” Ortega said. “CBP remains committed to using every available tool to stop these lethal substances before they reach our streets.”
The latest seizure is part of an escalating pattern that has prompted increasingly aggressive responses from Washington. President Donald Trump has warned of sweeping tariffs in the coming weeks unless Ottawa delivers a credible, actionable plan to crack down on transnational crime networks driving fentanyl production. These networks—operating primarily out of British Columbia—are deeply entrenched with organized crime groups from China and Mexico.
The Bureau has reported extensively on Washington’s mounting frustration with Canada’s handling of the fentanyl crisis. BC Mayor Brad West, who has been in direct communication with senior U.S. officials, has described an urgent shift in tone from American law enforcement and intelligence agencies. In a high-level 2023 meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, West was briefed on just how seriously Washington views Canada’s role in the illicit drug trade.
“This is no longer just a Canadian domestic issue,” West told The Bureau. “Secretary Blinken made it clear that the Biden administration sees fentanyl as an existential threat. They’re building a global coalition and need Canada fully on board. If we don’t show real progress, the U.S. will protect itself by any means—tariffs or otherwise.”
Concerns extend beyond law enforcement. According to multiple sources with direct knowledge of U.S. intelligence assessments, American agencies have begun withholding key evidence from their Canadian counterparts, citing a lack of confidence that Ottawa will act on it. West confirmed that in his ongoing discussions with senior U.S. officials, they have voiced alarm over the level of access major figures in Asian organized crime appear to have within Canada’s political class.
“They’re basically asking, ‘What’s going on in Canada?’” West said.
The frustration is not new. For years, U.S. and international law enforcement agencies have sought to curb the transnational reach of organizations like Sam Gor, the powerful Asian organized crime syndicate that dominates much of the fentanyl precursor supply chain. But Canada’s response has been widely seen as inadequate. Critics argue that political sensitivities and reluctance to confront entrenched criminal networks have left Canadian law enforcement hamstrung.
The question now is whether Ottawa will take decisive action. Bringing forward measures as sweeping as a RICO-style anti-mafia statute or invoking the notwithstanding clause to bypass legal obstacles to tougher enforcement would represent a sharp departure from the status quo. Both approaches would require confronting entrenched political, legal and economic interests, as well as explaining why existing laws have failed to secure convictions against the most powerful actors in organized crime.
West believes the shifting geopolitical landscape may force Ottawa’s hand. Washington’s patience, he warns, ran thin years ago—and the U.S. is now signaling it will no longer wait.
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Business
USAID funnelled $472 million into Soros-backed media censorship group: report

From LifeSiteNews
A newly released Wikileaks report has revealed that the beleaguered U.S. Agency for International Development directed almost half a billion dollars to Internews, a left-wing media training non-profit group founded by a self-described Marxist activist.
The controversial U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) directed more than $472 million to an international media non-profit that promotes left-wing narratives and endorses censorship of so-called “disinformation,” according to a recent Wikileaks report.
The Internews Network describes its mission as providing everyone with “trustworthy news and information to make informed decisions,” by “train[ing] journalists and digital rights activists, advanc[ing] internet freedom, and offer[ing] business expertise to help media companies become financially sustainable.” It boasts offices in 30 nations and support for “independent” media in more than 100.
In 2014, NewsBusters reported that Internews was “was founded by a self-described Marxist anti-war protester” and had gotten the vast majority of its revenue from government grants through programs such as USAID, although leftist financier George Soros also donated millions to it.
On February 7, Wikileaks reported that Internews had received $472.6 million from USAID alone as of 2023, that year producing “4,799 hours of broadcasts reaching up to 778 million people” through 4,291 different media outlets, as well as training more than 9,000 journalists.
During a 2023 World Economic Forum (WEF) panel in Davos, Switzerland, Internews President and CEO Jeanne Bourgault declared that “gendered disinformation” was “one of the most terrifying” types of online “misinformation,” which platforms had a responsibility to police through “content moderation,” and advertisers had an obligation to pressure platforms to restrict in thee name of “help[ing] democracy.”
Bourgault expressed similar sentiments at Davos the following year, arguing that “disinformation makes money and we need to follow that money and we need to work with, in particular, the global advertising industry.” She advocated “exclusion lists or inclusion lists just to really try to … focus their ad dollars toward” what she called the “good news and information.”
“And those are U.S. news sites that operate on social media. And those are U.S. news sites. This is the basis of lawsuits here in the U.S. like Daily Wire and the Federalist suing the State Department because U.S. news sites are in these advertiser blacklists,” cybersecurity expert and Foundation For Freedom Online Executive Director Mike Benz told podcaster Joe Rogan this week. “This is top-down U.S. government policy from the White House and I’ll show you the documents on that to the White House executive branch agencies like USAID and State.”
The Trump State Department recently issued a 90-day freeze on foreign aid disbursed through USAID, citing millions in waste and ideologically-biased programs. With exceptions for certain food programs and military aid to Israel and Egypt, the pause is meant to give the administration time to conduct a more thorough review of foreign aid to determine what permanent cuts should be made.
While presented in the media as simply a source of basic care for the poor and sick, USAID has long funneled millions to waste, frivolity, LGBT activism, abortion promotion, and even groups tied to terrorism.
The pause is part of a broader review of federal executive-branch spending currently being spearheaded by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) advisory project. Last weekend, a federal judge temporarily blocked the administration from putting USAID employees on paid leave, in what critics are calling a particularly extreme case of judicial overreach.
President Donald Trump also signed an executive order directing federal agencies to stop all attempts to pressure private companies to remove content.
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