Thank You, Zuckerberg! Free Speech Returns to Arizona?

Have you ever seen that old cartoon about building a swing?

It starts with a plain swing hanging from the branch of a tree with two ropes secured to a branch. In the next frame, the architects change it with fancy, impractical plans for the design.

After that, the structural engineers create a plan that is so safe that the swing is tied to the ground with chains and can no longer move. And so it goes until you see the original user plan in the last frame: a simple tire swing suspended by a single rope.

This image comes to mind when I think about the progression of social media and free speech in Arizona and across the world.

In the wild-wild-west-days of the early 'net, each user could make a post about whatever was on his or her mind. There was a character limit, so you had to be pithy and succinct.

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If you wanted to add photos, Instagram was your place, but there wasn't much room for commentary. If you wished to wax philosophical with your words, Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, and Tumblr were good choices. Over time, each platform allowed users to create longer posts, add photos and videos, and so on. But all this free speech had a problem.

As the freedom to express oneself expanded, there were users who pushed the limit, stepping on toes, hazing other users, and generally annoying, irritating, inveigling, and offending the cyber citizens across the Space of Cyber.

READ: How much time does Arizona spend on their cell phone?

When the offended pushed back, the Overseers of the Socials began installing chains on cyber citizens. These entities were called Fact Checkers, and their word was law on the dusty virtual streets of Cyberdom.

Enter the Social Media Fact Checkers

Most notably, Facebook and Instagram deputized these so-called "fact checkers" as a response to the pushback. They tried to ensure everyone running around the social media ecosystem played nicely in their respective sandboxes.

Ultimately, no one was satisfied - the measures either went too far or not far enough.

Accusations of bias and overreach were hurled at the platforms. Whole accounts were suspended or disappeared without warning, often without any real explanation. While the overseers may have started out as well-intentioned playground monitors, they quickly devolved and became the brunt of their own joke.

Free Speech is Restored in Arizona

Facebook Super God and mogul Mark Zuckerberg just dropped a bombshell: Facebook is ditching its fact-checkers.

Those third-party, hired-gun-type-playground monitors employed by Facebook, Instagram, and Threads are being retired. In place of the nameless, faceless oligarchs, the platforms are rolling out something called "Community Notes," which will act like crowdsourced fact-checking.

If I'm reading this right, it sounds like you'll be able to face your accusers (or attempted deleters) directly. Will this curb the spread of so-called fake news and give users more accurate information? Time will show us what this will mean for everyone.

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According to Zuckerberg, this is a move toward reducing censorship and getting back to the platform's roots of free expression. He admitted that the fact-checking system had become too politically biased and was making too many mistakes (literally confirming the accusations of those railing against the system.)

Platforms like X (formerly Twitter (do we still have to say that?!)) started to prioritize free speech over strict content moderation, and this seems to be the move other sites are following.

Arizona, the Social Media Wild Wild West Returns. Kind Of.

I like to think most social media users in Arizona will be encouraged by this news. Arizona has a long history of independent thinking. With a few exceptions, most adults can freely decide if the information they consume is legitimate, exaggerated, funny, ridiculous, or possibly fake news.

After all, we carry an ever-expanding world of information in our pockets via our cellular devices. With a few short swipes, we can potentially discover everything we need to know on nearly any topic.

Thank you, Mr. Zuckerberg! I, for one, couldn't be happier about this news. It seems we're returning to our internet roots, and we can once again enjoy social media as it was intended: endless hours of scrolling cat memes and videos!

Sources: Facebook: I Can Haz Cheezeburger? | Yahoo! News | Technology Magazine