On January 7, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg made the bold announcement that Meta would be dropping its fact checkers in in the name of free speech.

But less than a week later, it seems that Zuckerberg is going back on his work after users who attempted to share links on social media platforms such as Pixelfed and Mastodon were met with "spam" notification, and their posts were quickly removed.

Pixelfed is an open-source, community funded and decentralised image sharing platform that runs on Activity Pub, which is the same technology that supports Mastodom and other federated services.

This move had made man doubt the sincerity of Zuckerberg's to champion for free speech.

Meta’s Censorship of Decentralized Platforms

This move has made many fans question why Meta's commitment to free speech doesn't extend to backlinks to decentralized social media links.

According to 404 media reports, Facebook has been actively removing links to Instagram competitors Pixelfed and Masterdon, an open-source social networking service.

Disgruntled users have also taken it to social media to voice their dissatisfaction about Facebook deleting their posts. One user wrote

"Facebook has banned anyone from linking to Pixelfed. Within seconds, I got a post saying my post was banned."

Another user also voiced similar concerns when he linked to Mastodon, saying

"My comment was immediately removed, also because of spam."

These complaints surfaced just days after Meta announced its commitment to advocate for greater free speech and fewer mistakes, which included removing third-party fact checkers in the United States.

Zuckerberg's free speech admission to pander to Donald Trump?

In a five-minute video message shared on his Facebook page, Zuckerberg said

"We're going to get back to our roots and focus on reducing mistakes, simplifying our policies and restoring free expression on our platforms."

In his video, Zuckerberg talked about how the election was a major influence on this decision, as Trump's win signifies a major leap for free speech.

Because of this statement that Zuckerberg had said, many have since accused him of sucking up and trying to curry favor with the new President with this new move.

Meta has also swore to get rid of a bunch of restrictions on topics like immigration and gender that are just out of touch with mainstream discourse.

These changes will affect Facebook and Instagram, two of the largest social media sites in the world that hosts billions of users, as well as Threads.

This major shift in "Free speech" has gathered a mixture of reactions. Many well known political commentators like Ben Shapiro has celebrated the move, saying

"This is a sea change in the direction of Facebook. Zuckerberg spelled out his vision for free speech at Georgetown in 2019, to the consternation and shock of the left; Facebook then proceeded to cave, engaging in mass censorship. The eide has turned. Good for Zuckerberg"

Others have criticised Zuckerberg, saying

"He's a human weathervane. The wind blows one way, that's what he says. The wind changes direction, now he says that."

It remains to be seen if Zuckerberg is really committed to free speech or whether he is just putting up a front just to appease the upcoming President Donald Trump, who previously threatened to jail the Meta CEO.