BY SIMONE J. SMITH
“The only way that we can push back on this global trend is with the support of the US government, and that’s why it’s been so difficult over the past four years when even the US government has pushed for censorship.”
The above statement is from Facebook Founder Mark Zuckerberg who first suggested that the censorship we have been dealing with was purely a technical mistake, and then changed his tune near the end and admitted what has long been litigated; WE WERE BEING CENSORED BY OUR GOVERNMENTS!
History will remember the pandemic as a time when Canada’s most sacred principles collided with unprecedented institutional power — and lost. The scientific discourse was replaced with approved narratives. Medical researchers couldn’t share findings that diverged from institutional positions, and many credible discussions were removed so that we could not see them.
Most of the censorship we faced had to do with COVID-related posts — posts about vaccine injuries, alternate treatments like ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine, competing theories about whether COVID originated in nature, or leaked from a lab in Wuhan, China.
Facebook silenced the debates. It shut down the “free expression” and exchange of information. This wasn’t just censorship; it was meta-censorship — silencing discussion about the very mechanisms of control being deployed.
Then, it was what this censorship did to our communities. The destruction of family bonds may prove even more lasting. Remember having to say hello to family members who lived down the street via Zoom. Grandparents missed irreplaceable moments with grandchildren. Siblings who had been close for decades stopped speaking. Years of family connections shattered not over disagreements about facts, but over the very right to discuss them without it turning into a war.
The most insidious was the community-level damage. Local groups splintered. Neighbours turned against neighbours, making judgements and pitting people against each other. Small businesses faced blacklisting. Churches were divided. School board meetings devolved into battlegrounds.
Even personal experiences were labeled “misinformation” if they didn’t align with official messaging. The damage rippled through every layer of society. At the individual level, careers were destroyed, professional licenses revoked, and businesses were shut down simply for sharing genuine experiences.
Scientists and doctors who questioned the prevailing narratives found themselves professionally ostracized. Many were made to feel isolated, or irrational for trusting their own eyes and experiences when platforms labeled their firsthand accounts as “misinformation.”
What brings me the most dismay is that this systematic dismantling of fundamental rights didn’t happen through military force, or executive decree, but through the quiet cooperation of: tech platforms, media gatekeepers and government agencies, all claiming to protect us from “misinformation.”
That is what Meta’s sudden dismantling of its fact-checking program — announced by Mark Zuckerberg reads like a quiet footnote to what history may record as one of the most staggering violations of fundamental rights in recent memory.
In his announcement this week, Mark Zuckerberg claimed Facebook would end its third-party “fact-checking” program . . . to “restore free expression” across Facebook, Instagram and Meta platforms. Below is a snippet of his announcement.
“First, we’re gonna get rid of fact-checkers and replace them with community notes similar to X starting in the US. After Trump first got elected in 2016, the legacy media wrote nonstop about how misinformation was a threat to democracy.”
“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 US. So, over the next couple of months, we’re gonna phase in a more comprehensive community note system.”
“Second, we’re gonna simplify our content policies and get rid of a bunch of restrictions on topics like immigration and gender that are just out of touch with mainstream discourse.”
“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. So, I wanna make sure that people can share their beliefs and experiences on our platforms.”
“Third, we’re changing how we enforce our policies to reduce the mistakes that account for the vast majority of censorship on our platforms. We used to have filters that scanned for any policy violation. Now we’re gonna focus those filters on tackling illegal and high severity violations.”
“For lower severity violations, we’re going to rely on someone reporting an issue before we take action. The problem is that the filters make mistakes, and they take down a lot of content that they shouldn’t.”
Tens of millions have been spent to prove what he could have admitted years ago, but back then, the censors were still in charge, and Facebook was working right along with them. It did it by kicking Toronto Caribbean Newspaper and many of you! — off Facebook and Instagram. To keep us from raising questions and sharing facts.
We are eagerly awaiting action by Mark Zuckerberg to reinstate our censored and banned accounts and those of many others. However, our work doesn’t stop there.
How many lives were lost, or forever changed due to the censorship of critical information?
Where is the justice for our children and our loved ones?
Returning our right to free speech is not enough, it’s only the beginning.
REFERENCES:
https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender_category/big-tech/
https://www.bmj.com/content/375/bmj.n2635/rr-80
https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender_category/censorship-surveillance/
Zuckerberg Embraces Free Speech — But That Doesn’t Undo the Damage Facebook’s Censorship Caused
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