Opinion

Trump’s second term heralds changes for US social media

January 30, 2025

John Fortier (Opinion Contributor)

Social media companies are reworking their policies in favor of less restricted free speech under President Trump’s second term. — Image credit: Getty Images

All opinions expressed in this article are solely the opinions of the contributors.

Elon Musk, the world’s richest man and owner of the social media platform X, contributed over $277 million to help President Donald Trump win the November 2024 elections. Mark Zuckerberg, owner of Meta, has also cozied up to the new president, contributing to his inauguration fund, resolving a legal dispute with Trump and announcing a range of changes to Facebook policies. TikTok, meanwhile, posted a controversial message during its hours-long shutdown, celebrating Trump and indicating that the new president would save the platform. President Trump previously led the effort to criminalize TikTok beginning in 2020, but he now credits the platform with having helped him win reelection in 2024.

Watch the above video as Straight Arrow News contributor John Fortier reviews these sweeping changes in U.S. social media policy, where he says those changes are coming from, and what to make of the evolving relationship between private social media platforms and the U.S. government during Trump’s second term.

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The following is an excerpt from the above video:

But aside from aligning with the winning candidate, Meta’s announcement is both a philosophical shift and a recognition of the practical difficulties of regulating content. In a nutshell, Meta promised to set its filters to look at much less politically controversial content, to err on the side of free speech, and to scrap its fact-checking methods for something like X’s “Community Notes” approach.

Critics will rightly say that there is no way around content moderation. If all filters were taken off, we would see the worst of the worst— sex trafficking, terrorist recruitment, violent videos, etc. But Meta will still regulate this parade of horribles, but [will] allow much more freedom in the area of political speech. That is a pro-speech policy, but it also recognizes that it was not very good at regulating controversial political comments. Algorithmic filters are too clumsy to consistently police this content. Outside fact checkers are often just introducing other biases into the platform’s moderation. Pro-free speech policy and practical governance go together.

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All opinions expressed in this article are solely the opinions of the contributors.

The reaction of social media companies to the election has been extraordinary. Free Speech America and Donald Trump are in fact checking. Europe and government pressure are on the outs.

Changes in social media governance took off with Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter. His changes to now x to allow more content, to introduce community notes instead of traditional fact checking, and to invite previously banned accounts back on X spurred changes in the other social media platforms. Ultimately, the issue of free speech became an important campaign issue for Republicans. And Elon Musk allied himself directly with Donald Trump. This shape shift raised the profile of the issue of free speech and the appropriate actions of social media companies, but it also surfaced a political division, with many Democrats defending the need for content moderation to prevent misinformation, and with some loudly leaving x for the blue sky of the blue sky platform.

While these divisions are still apparent, the cascading effects of Musk’s purchase of and changes to Twitter raised up the Free Speech side of the argument in the depths of COVID the Free Speech argument seemed pinned to the mat and unlikely to be revived the purchase of Twitter and the following 18 months leading to the election brought it back to life,

but the post election, changes by social media platforms have breathed even more life into the issue of free speech on social media platforms, especially in three areas, changes to content moderation, American support for social media companies, especially against European regulation and further investigation and policy setting on the issue of government pressure on social media Companies.

First Mark Zuckerberg policy changes announcement, in his own words, brought meta back to its free speech roots. There is no doubt that Zuckerberg announcement could be seen as many of his critics have charged as making changes to please Donald Trump, many tech and other corporate leaders had been at best, lukewarm towards Trump, and now many are attending his inauguration and contributing to its funding.

But aside from aligning with the winning candidate, metas announcement is both a philosophical shift and a recognition of the practical difficulties of regulating content. In a nutshell, Mehta promised to set its filters to look at much less politically controversial content, to err on the side of free speech and to scrap its fact checking methods for something like X’s community notes approach.

Critics will rightly say that there is no way around content moderation. If all filters were taken off, we would see the worst of the worst, sex trafficking, terrorist recruitment, violent videos, etc. But meta will still regulate this parade of horribles, but allow much more freedom in the area of political speech. That is a pro speech policy, but it also recognizes that it was not very good at regulating controversial political comments. Algorithmic filters are too clumsy to consistently police this content outside fact checkers are often just introducing other biases into the platform’s moderation. Pro free speech, policy and practical governance go together. Second, Google announced that it will not integrate fact checking into its platform in the way that new European regulation seems to require. Exactly how this will play out is uncertain, but just like the meta announcement, it is a statement that some aspects of content moderation are not workable for the platforms. More importantly, it may signal that the American social media platforms see that President Trump may be willing to go to bat for American companies against overly burdensome European regulation and fines. Mark Zuckerberg, two on the Joe Rogan podcast, detailed the 10s of billions of dollars of fines paid by his company to Europe.

While Europe has prided itself on its regulation of social media, it is also the case that, generally speaking, the European regulation falls on American companies. President Trump has said he will actively negotiate over trade issues, and said in a set of pro American, pro free speech, social media companies might find a president willing to fight for them in trade negotiations.

Third, Zuckerberg recounted again, some of the government pressure that was placed on his company. Musk’s release of the Twitter files also unveiled some of that pressure on.

So last year, the Supreme Court issued a decision in the Murphy in related cases that did not crack down on what some saw as government pressure or job owning of social media platforms. The court in these cases at least did not see strong, unambiguous government action, and it raised the bar for standing to sue in these cases,

but the new reports from social media companies about such pressure on vaccines, election information and a number of other areas, combined with Republican interest in both Congress and the executive branch to investigate these past incidents means that the issue may have fresh legs the

changes following elections do not always last forever, but for now, the tide has turned for more free speech on social media platforms, more advocacy for American tech companies against foreign social media regulation and for less informal government pressure on social media.

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