Editor's Note: This article is from Gun Pulse, an email-only newsletter from The Sentinel published six days per week to cover the battle over the Second Amendment.
Second Amendment advocates observed that the sudden pivot toward free expression taken by Meta chief executive Mark Zuckerberg presents a welcome threat to gun control.
Zuckerberg announced in a video last week that the social media platforms owned by Meta would start to prioritize free speech, replacing censorship by way of fact-checkers with a community notes system, as well as allow for more open political discourse.
Open Source Defense, a nonprofit that seeks to expand gun ownership, commented on social media that the decision from Zuckerberg would be “pretty disastrous” for gun control organizations, which have often proved unable to withstand scrutiny in open debate.
“Most of their organic engagement on gun-related posts is from gun rights people pointing out where they're wrong,” the social media page for Open Source Defense asserted, predicting that the gun control activists would “have trouble getting any traction on a level playing field.”
The social media page for the National Association for Gun Rights agreed with the prediction, adding that Second Amendment advocates should “be reminded that our opponents are astro-turfed pet projects funded predominantly by elites within a select few states.”
The gun rights lobbying entity remarked that “social media and hard work from activists have slowly exposed their lies, resulting in ever decreasing popularity for their agendas.”
Zuckerberg said the pivot toward free speech came as the election made him realize that the censorship offered at Facebook and Instagram in recent years was inappropriate.
“We’ve reached a point where it’s just too many mistakes and too much censorship,” the executive commented in the video. “The recent elections also feel like a cultural tipping point towards once again prioritizing speech, so we’re going to get back to our roots and focus on reducing mistakes, simplifying our policies, and restoring free expression on our platforms.”
