Meta wraps itself in democratic virtue to justify reinstating the former President, but in doing so exposes itself to Washington’s trust busters.
(Originally published Jan. 26 in “What in the World“) The company that runs Facebook and Instagram, Meta, apparently took a hard look at two upcoming U.S. Supreme Court cases its industry faces and decided the most profitable strategy would be to feign surrender in both and then do what it wants.
Meta on Wednesday announced it was reinstating former President and Shit Stirrer-in-Chief Donald Trump to both Facebook and Instagram after a two-year suspension. In explaining the decision, Meta’s president of global affairs, Nick Clegg, took the high road, writing: “The public should be able to hear what their politicians are saying—the good, the bad and the ugly—so that they can make informed choices at the ballot box.”
Sir Nick (he was knighted in 2018) knows more than most about the cut-and-thrust of politics: he was a member of the U.K. parliament for 12 years and for five years served as deputy prime minister in a coalition government led by former U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron. So, he knows what he’s talking about when he writes: “Democracy is messy and people should be able to make their voices heard.”
In reinstating The Donald, Meta wants us to believe it is yielding to the forces of democracy and specifically to the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment enshrining freedom of speech. It also seems to be betting that the Supreme Court is likely to uphold two state laws, one in Florida and the other in Texas, passed to limit social media platforms’ ability to censor political content after both Meta and Twitter banned Trump for his support of an attempted coup by a right-wing mob at the U.S. Congress in January 2020.
The Court was due to begin hearing the case this week, but on Monday asked the Administration of President Joe Biden for its opinion. That means it’s unlikely to take the case up until fall. But it should come as no surprise that Big Tech opposes both laws, arguing that they violate its own First Amendment rights to determine what content its platforms publish. In other words, companies are people (ht: Mitt Romney), and these particular people are like newspapers, with a right to publish whatever they deem to be in the public interest—that is to say, interesting to the public and thus to advertisers—and not to publish what isn’t.
But Meta also appears to be worried the industry will lose another Supreme Court case concerning whether social media is responsible for content its users post. Next month, the Court is due to hear two cases challenging Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which shields online platforms from lawsuits against content posted by their users. That sets them apart from newspapers and other journalistic outlets, which can and are held responsible if their content is libelous or defamatory. One of the cases, Gonzalez v. Google, argues that content posted by users becomes tantamount to the platforms’ content once its own algorithms recommend that content to other users based on its assessments of their interests and pushes it to them.
So Meta is hedging its decision to reinstate Trump by saying it will keep a close eye on his content and punish him for any naughty stuff he might post. People have a First Amendment right after all to make their views heard on Facebook and Instagram, Meta implies, but there are limits to what they can say. Just ask Alex Jones, whose fantastic claims that the Sandy Hook shootings were a hoax cost him and his website a $1.5 billion defamation verdict. “When there is a clear risk of real world harm—a deliberately high bar for Meta to intervene in public discourse—we act,” Clegg wrote. Thus, after having deemed that Trump’s risk to public safety has receded, Meta will put “new guardrails in place to deter repeat offenses.”
Guardrails mean penalties only a wrist might rue: “In the event that Mr. Trump posts further violating content, the content will be removed and he will be suspended for between one month and two years, depending on the severity of the violation.” In other words, Meta will shut Trump’s door after his posts have bolted, but not an instant before.
Why even take the risk for someone so admittedly committed to provocation? Because as Trump so often reminds anyone who will listen, he is an irresistible entertainer, whether hosting “The Apprentice,” delivering dangerous misinformation about public health or holding court by phone on Fox News.
Before he was banned, Trump’s personal accounts had 88.9 million followers on Twitter, 35.4 million on Facebook and 24.6 million on Instagram. That doesn’t include followers of his official White House or POTUS accounts. And while his numbers on Facebook and Instagram paled in comparison with footballers Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi or celebrities like Shakira and Kylie Jenner, his was the eighth most followed Twitter account, after Taylor Swift.
Because like any ad-driven business, Facebook and Instagram are merely a new form of infotainment, with an increasing emphasis on the latter half of that portmanteau. For years, big news organizations like News Corp. fought Meta and Google for posting previews of their articles without paying for it even though it generated ad revenue and turned social media into many users’ leading source of news. In 2019, Meta compromised by paying news outlets for content it featured in a “news tab.” But by last year, the world had shifted again. So Meta stopped paying for that featured news—saving it an estimated $100 million—and instead paid Buzzfeed $10 million to help train influencers in how to create more compelling, “viral” content to better compete with TikTok.
Social media’s pretense to democratic egalitarianism is an outdated interpretation that extends only to the level of access to its platforms. Yes, anyone can still join, and anyone can still post. But just as in the real world, users have become starkly divided between popular “influencers” like Trump worth big advertising bucks—and the rest of us, who serve as an audience for advertising.
So just as film studios, record companies and publishers invest in the celebrity of their content creators, big social media companies do, too. Notably, they use algorithms to help identify, cultivate and expand their stars’ fan base. Trump won’t just be posting to those who follow him: if his followers don’t manage to broadcast his views to potentially like-minded users, the algorithms will. If you have any doubt about this, simply search for a holiday destination or medical problem and see how rapidly your news feed adjusts.
Allowing Trump back onto Facebook and Instagram isn’t about the First Amendment at all. Trump, like any individual in the United States, has the right to say whatever he wants. But private companies like Meta have no obligation to publish it. On the contrary, the industry argues that it has a First Amendment right to publish or reject whatever content it wants. But in making that choice, the industry should be held accountable for that content just like any other medium. Meta can’t pretend it’s a referee handing out yellow and red cards. Because it profits from the content of celebrities like Trump, it’s a jersey-wearing member of the team.
The alternative is one that Meta and its social-media counterparts will like even less. And that’s this: the Court accepts the argument that access to social media is a democratic right and that content, to the extent that it doesn’t cause real harm, protected as free speech. Then we cannot rightly bar anyone’s participation or hold the platforms themselves responsible for what individuals might say or depict in this public square for democratic debate.
But then social media starts to resemble a public utility and the Administration’s argument that Big Tech enjoys a monopoly on advertising technology, among others, becomes much more compelling. Trump is Exhibit A. Once he was banned from just two companies’ platforms, where could he go to publish his views as protected under the First Amendment? He resorted to starting his own social media outlet, Truth Social.
Meta would likely prefer it be treated as what it really has become: an entertainment studio, like Universal, Paramount or Warner Bros. If Hollywood studios decide to blacklist a director or actor, it’s up to them as a commercial decision. Just ask Kevin Spacey.
But if a star is just too bankable to ignore? Just give them a blue checkmark.