Abigail Shrier: Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, and Our Government Censors

When asked why he robbed banks, legendary fugitive Willie Sutton replied, “That’s where the money is.” Governments coerce social media platforms into censorship for the same simple reason: That’s where the objectionable speech is. 

Thanks to a recent Supreme Court case, in America, there’s also little to stop them. 

Social media platforms—but not their users—can sue the government to stop the impermissible suppression of speech, according to Murthy v. Missouri, decided in June. The Court held that social media users could not establish a causal link between government pressure and the suppression of their posts because “the platforms had independent incentives to moderate content and often exercised their own judgment.” In an America where platforms’ interest in censoring disfavored views often align with the government’s, who is in a position legally to stop it?

Which is why so many commentators were relieved when Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, in a letter to the House Judiciary Committee last week, vowed to “push back” on future government attempts to censor Facebook posts. 

Alas, Zuckerberg’s was the Metaverse of promises: uncompelling, phony, and without purchase in the actual world. When he had the chance—repeatedly, over the last eight years—Zuckerberg, like Twitter’s former CEO Jack Dorsey, buckled. Both willingly suppressed speech Democratic officials found objectionable: the Hunter Biden laptop story and skepticism of Covid-19 policies. Dorsey’s Twitter kicked a sitting Republican president off Twitter. 

Even assuming Zuckerberg has had a sincere change of heart, he is unlikely to follow through. That’s because his legal responsibility is to his shareholders, not to the public and its freedoms. Any platform that sues the administration invites the IRS or FCC or SEC to take a keen interest in its filings. 

What are the chances that a President Kamala Harris would forbear and avoid arm-twisting social media companies into censorship? Based on Harris’s record: Not great. 

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