Even as Meta seeks congratulations on free speech reforms amid federal scrutiny, the company tacitly admitted on Thursday that censorship is not over on its platforms.
Meta framed its first-quarter integrity report as a major free speech win while also confessing that it continues to err in censoring posts. Meta specifically claimed in the report that, since the start of the year, it has “cut enforcement mistakes in the U.S. in half.” Meta Chief Global Affairs Officer Joel Kaplan even bragged about the censorship in a Thursday update to a January blog headlined: “More Speech and Fewer Mistakes.”
“This improvement follows the commitment we made in January to change our focus to proactively enforcing high-severity violations and enhancing our accuracy through system audits and additional signals,” Kaplan wrote paradoxically.
However, while this might be a step in the right direction, it still raises the issue of the other half of “enforcement mistakes.” Just how many users are being unjustly censored, and why has Meta only halved these so-called mistakes? The timing of the report’s publication is also telling, coinciding with its federal antitrust trial in a lawsuit filed by the Federal Trade Commission, the federal agency also probing Big Tech censorship.
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The tech giant has made progress on curbing censorship of free speech since announcing enforcement changes in January, according to its report. “In December 2024, for example, we removed millions of pieces of content every day. Yet we estimated that one to two out of every 10 of those actions may have been mistakes (i.e., the content may not have actually violated our policies),” Meta conceded.
Meta also claimed it has “taken steps to reduce the number of mistakes we make in the United States, cutting them in half for the time period of Q[uarter]4 2024 to the end of Q1 2025.”
While the announcement signals progress, Meta should not be censoring free speech at all, said Dan Schneider, the vice president for MRC Free Speech America. “We appreciate that Meta wants to get better, but it is way too early to praise Meta. A bank robber taking only $5 million from his most recent target when he usually steals 10 is not praiseworthy; it is still a felony crime,” Schneider said. “Meta also needs to adopt a new standard. We continue to call on the company to allow all constitutionally-protected speech. Nebulous standards masquerading as ‘protection’ stifle our rights and harm our system of government where ‘We the People' are supposed to be in charge.”
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Meta has stated that it is raising thresholds for censorship, sometimes requiring reviews and auditing its systems. However, it remains unclear how closely Meta’s policies align with First Amendment principles.
Meta’s boast could be part of its effort to save face during the FTC investigation. For instance, independent journalist Ivory Hecker posted on X May 23 that Meta had lifted all restrictions on her Instagram page. “You guys! Instagram just put my page in perfect standing after the FTC finished collecting evidence on their censorship this week!” Hecker wrote.
You guys! Instagram just put my page in perfect standing after the FTC finished collecting evidence on their censorship this week! 😌🙏🏼
— Ivory Hecker (@IvoryHecker) May 23, 2025
First slide is how it looks now. Second slide is how it looked for years, ever since the pandemic when I covered stories outside of the… pic.twitter.com/IbKpXUq3wG
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