Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta boasted about a “fundamental shift” of integrating artificial intelligence (AI) in every part of your life.
Facebook and Instagram, both Meta-owned social media platforms, already attempt to control what users see online, including through censorship and manipulation of free speech. As Meta boasted in a year-end report of its “mixed reality” AI features, smart glasses, and future “human-level AI,” one thing is clear: Meta aims to make its technology inseparable from people’s daily lives. On the other hand, it has adopted an “open source” business model to make its source code available and transparent to the public, the opposite of Google’s approach, which aims to keep its dark arts secret. 
But how dangerous would it be for a company that attempts to control free speech to be shaping people’s perception of the world through “smart glasses” and “mixed reality”? Is this a new threat to freedom of speech?
In the report, Meta cited radical leftist billionaire Bill Gates while bragging about its investment in AI and the “metaverse,” claiming the two now intersect. “We believe one of the most powerful manifestations of cutting edge AI will be assistants like Meta AI that can understand the world around you and help you throughout your day, eventually without needing to be prompted,” the company announced. But, as MRC Free Speech America VP Dan Schneider has emphasized, AI could also turbo-charge censorship and control of speech as never before.
“Research has shown that ChatGPT and other AI models already promote a liberal agenda. Our own research has shown that Google’s Bard is especially bad. But we also know that Meta is able to discern people’s thought processes with its technology, essentially making it an AI-powered mind reader,” said MRC Free Speech America Vice President Dan Schneider. “Instead of investigating the use of these technologies and addressing the threat of closed-source AI models, Joe Biden has issued a gag order to keep the government on the sidelines while many of these Big Tech companies continue their work in secret.”
For instance, Meta proudly predicted its AI Ray-Ban glasses will “translate a foreign language you’re trying to read, or come up with a funny caption for a photo you’ve taken… all hands free, without you needing to pull out a phone or operate an app.” If Meta already made MRC Free Speech America’s list of worst censors for the year with just the Facebook and Instagram apps, how much more could it attack free speech with AI devices?
The company noted, “Within months of the Meta Quest 3 launch, seven of the top 20 apps are mixed reality apps.” These allow users to “add” AI features to their real world experiences. This could raise both privacy and free speech concerns, however. Censorship-heavy Meta is not a reliable company.
Conservatives are under attack. Contact Facebook headquarters at (650) 308-7300 and demand that Big Tech be held to account to mirror the First Amendment while providing transparency, clarity on “misinformation” and equal footing for conservatives. If you have been censored, contact us using CensorTrack’s contact form, and help us hold Big Tech accountable.
