MRC Founder and President Brent Bozell issued a special announcement video to MRC’s supporters recounting how patriotic Americans have won the battle against Meta’s censorship.
Speaking from the MRC’s Virginia headquarters on Tuesday, Bozell urged Americans to “take a bow” for achieving a significant victory after Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg shockingly pledged to uphold the First Amendment on his social media platforms. This announcement marks a complete turnaround from the rampant censorship that has become a signature of Meta-owned social media platforms.
Bozell highlighted that this victory comes after the MRC became the first organization to recognize the genuine threat that the "Silicon Valley behemoth" posed to freedom and democracy. Bozell delivered his passionate address just minutes after Zuckerberg declared via Facebook that Meta would end the leftist fact-checking program, lift speech restrictions on immigration and gender and relocate its “trust and safety” team from California to Texas.
“We launched Free Speech America to confront the leftists who were deliberately silenced as they censored one conservative organization and leader after another. Then, we launched the Free Speech Alliance to bring our entire movement together in this cause. Today, we—you and I, and everyone who is part of the MRC family and the conservative movement—should celebrate a massive victory,” said Bozell.
A transcript of Bozell’s full remarks from yesterday’s recording are below:
“Today marks a huge victory for free speech and for the Media Research Center. Take a bow: you made it possible.
“Twelve years ago, we were the very first to see the true threat to freedom — democracy itself — that was posed by Silicon Valley behemoths, as powerful as they were wealthy. We launched Free Speech America to confront the leftists who were deliberately silent as they censored one conservative organization and leader after another. Then, we launched the Free Speech Alliance to bring our entire movement together in this cause.
“Today, we — you and I, and everyone who is part of the MRC family and the conservative movement — should celebrate a massive victory. This morning, Mark Zuckerberg released an extraordinary video unequivocally conceding that censorship has, in fact, been an ongoing practice, openly and unequivocally acknowledging it was wrong, and openly and unequivocally declaring he’s changing the entire framework at Facebook, Instagram, and Threads.
“First and foremost, they’re firing every last one of their so-called third-party “Fact Checkers.” You know who those people were. They were the militant radical leftists who have been silencing conservatives and every other person who dares to contradict the radical Soros left-wing narrative.
“They’ve worked to silence conversations about the origins of the Wuhan virus, the Hunter Biden laptop, the true nature of so-called “sex change” operations for children, the pro-life cause, and so many other faith-based concerns — even negative comments about Joe Biden’s cognitive functioning.
“I issued a statement today commending Mark Zuckerberg. I truly believe he is sincere. Oh, there will still be problems, but going forward, they will be the exception, not the rule. The rules have changed.
“Some thought this David-and-Goliath fight was impossible to win. After all, the top 5 tech companies today are valued at over $13 trillion. That is bigger than the gross domestic product of every nation on the planet except for the U.S. and China.
“These Big Tech companies are quite literally a million times larger than the MRC. And yet, they’re moving in our direction!
“When we launched Free Speech America, we also created CensorTrack, the most potent tool available to educate the media and the public about the erosion of one of our most sacred rights: the First Amendment.
“Today, after Meta racked up 1,725 cases of censorship as documented in CensorTrack, it declared: Message Received.
“Zuckerberg replaced the second most senior person at the company, a leftist, with Joel Kaplan, a man with a sterling reputation as a champion for freedom.
“Zuckerberg also elevated into the number three slot Kevin Martin, a friend of mine who has long stood for free speech rights.
“I know Mark Zuckerberg. He’s actually not a radical. He is certainly left of center, maybe even far left of center, but he also values First Amendment free speech rights.
“When the Orwellian fact-checking idea first emerged in Silicon Valley, I urged him to stay away from it. At first, he agreed and actually did. But ultimately Facebook joined this censorship push — and paid the price.
“It took real guts for Mark to admit that Facebook was actually censoring political opponents and then to express regret for it. It’s exciting to hear that he and his company are returning to the principles of free speech.
“It’s time for others, especially Google and TikTok, to follow Mark’s lead. Rest assured, while this was a great victory, there is still a tremendous amount of work to do to stop censorship by Big Tech, and we’ll continue this fight until Silicon Valley embraces the First Amendment as much as you and I do.”
