The Rare Religion Post That Is Also Informational and Heartening Even For the Non-Christian

Rare because I rarely post such. Pastor Bolz-Weber says all this so well, and it is what I learned when I was young and growing up; what I work to apply in my own (and in no one else’s) life. I’m not proselytizing or trying to “draw anyone in.” This helps to explain why and how I feel as I do about justice and peace, and love and understanding and all that, including hope and light. Enjoy with a mind that can absorb without feeling there’s gonna be a “come forward” moment, because there’s not one. (Other than to Christians who feel as we do, but wonder about Zionism and Nationalism being as bad as they are.)

Heresy and Checkpoints by Nadia Bolz-Weber

Some thoughts from breakfast this morning. Read on Substack

In Christmas Sermon, Palestinian Theologian Condemns Enablers of Gaza Genocide — Rev. Dr. Munther Isaac

This morning I had a quick breakfast with another Lutheran pastor. This of course is not terribly remarkable in the scheme of things, except for the fact that the breakfast took place in the Kingdom of Jordan, a few feet away from the Dead Sea and my colleague had to cut the breakfast short so he could return home to his family, but he was anxious about all the military check point between here and there.

“How far of a drive is it” I asked.

“If I had a car and could drive straight there, about an hour. But my hope is that it will only take 8 hours.” He accepted that he may in fact not even make it home at all tonight.

Munther Isaac is a Palestinian Lutheran Pastor who lives and serves a church in Beit Sahour, near Bethlehem, the birthplace of Jesus. Christians have been here since the day the Spirit blew through them on the day of Pentecost, so Munther and my other Palestinian Christian friends can get slightly annoyed when well meaning Christians from the West ask “when did your family convert?”.

Um, over 2,000 years ago?

Munther and I are in Jordan right now for a conference – 60 academics and church leaders from 17 countries gathered over the last several days for a consultation on Christian Zionism (belief that Jewish people have a “divine right” to the land here – using a few verses in a 4,000 year old text to have authority over foreign policy and global political realities of today), and the impact of that on Christians in the Middle East; a few days together in a majority Muslim country, across the Dead Sea from the State of Israel to talk about Christian folks’ business: how do the theological beliefs of one group of Christians impact the lives of another group of Christians halfway across the planet?

Many of us grew up with some form of Christian Zionism, I know I did. Perhaps it stemmed from a desire to be faithful to what we have been told, or a desire to help usher in the second coming of Christ (ala The Late Great Planet Earth) so he can come back and destroy the world and take us up to heaven (described this week as science fiction theology), or a desire to assuage the guilt left over from the unspeakable atrocities and genocide of the holocaust.

It will take me time to metabolize what I heard over the last few days. Christian Zionism is widespread, and far reaching in it’s impact, and I am committed to try and maintain the humility it takes as a US citizen and a Christian to consider people like Munther and my friend Mitri Raheb as reliable narrators of the impact on the ground in Palestine.

Palestinian Christians should be listened to by us, their siblings in Christ.

Munther Isaac appeared in ‘Til Kingdom Come (2020), an Israeli documentary about American Christian support for Israel.^[20] In the film he explains his view to pastor William Bingham that Christian Zionism contributes to the oppression of Palestinians. After their conversation, Bingham calls Isaac an anti-semite and says that Palestinians do not exist. – Wikipedia

This morning before Munther left to make his way home, he told me a story of a family in his church. For over 150 years they have rightfully owned and inhabited their land outside Bethlehem – a beautiful parcel dotted with olive trees, often hundreds of years old themselves.

Israeli settlers (whose actions are deemed illegal by the UN Security Council)
who for years have been attempting to take this family’s land, confronted them at their gate recently, demanding the family leave. The family showed them their ownership documents – dating back from Ottoman rule, then Jordanian rule through to Israeli rule. The settlers angrily lifted up their Bible and said “We have documents too. God gave us this land!”

As I mentioned, I am overwhelmed by all I heard this week and will try and write more later for those who are interested, but for now I wanted to report how one word stood out for me in a particular way during the conference, and that word is: heresy.

19^th century theologian Friedrich Schleiermacher defined heresy as, “that which preserves the appearance of Christianity, and yet contradicts its essence“

So perhaps that is the correct word for when, with all the trappings of Christianity behind us, we who seek to justify or maintain our dominance over another group of people use the Bible to prove that our domination`is not actually an abuse of power at the expense of others, but is, indeed, part of “God’s plan”. Because there you have the appearance of Christianity (Bible verses and God-talk) contradicting its essence (love God, and love your neighbor, blessed are the meek, etc…).

Is it not heresy when slavery is established as “God’s will”; when the subordination of women is established as “God’s will”; when discrimination against queer folks is established as “God’s will”, when the taking of one people’s land by another people is established as “God’s will” (hello, manifest destiny), when the executive VP of the National Rifle Association claims that the right to buy an assault rifle is “not bestowed by man, but granted by God”? When a self-justifying message is heretically delivered in God’s name it brings with it a poison that infects the deepest parts of us and when the poison spreads, so does the violence.

When you can say that God Almighty is co-signing on your dominance over another group of God’s children, then every means is justified, right to the end. Every inch of land stolen, every suicide bombing enacted, every act of violence committed, every weapon used, every checkpoint and illegal detention, every child who dies, every tower that falls to the ground – all of it covered under some sort of bullshit spiritual umbrella policy. There are no means that need justifying if we claim God as our patron and guide.

And I imagine God is just about sick to death of it.

As I claimed in my book about sexual shame and religion, we should never be more loyal to a doctrine or an interpretation of a Bible verse than we are to people. If the teachings of the church are harming people we re-think those teachings. Amen?

Speaking up for Palestinians often comes at a cost. Those of you who have done it know. I also know, but am frankly too tired to care right now. So, if based on my recounting of the stories of my friends and colleagues, anyone is moved to called me anti-semitic, please open up the notes app on your phone and feel free to write it there but I will delete your unfounded accusations if you leave them here.

My apologies for the edge in my writing voice. We are all exhausted and as my friend Jodi just texted me, “this month has been two years long already.”

Thank you for reading. I am genuinely sending my love. Please pray this ceasefire holds. And for those waiting on the side of a road right now to return to the rubble of their homes. And for the hostages and prisoners who were released yesterday. I cannot imagine the trauma.

More soon…

In it with you,

Nadia

Peace & Justice History for 1/27

https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistoryjanuary.htm#january27

It happened again. Trigger warning for child physical and sexual abuse.

Last night I had gone to bed earlier than Ron, my husband as is normal. I slept on my side of the bed and Tupac slept on Ron’s side against Ron’s pillows. We have two small car type pillows and we normally put one down against Ron’s pillows with a towel over them for Tupac to lay on. He sometimes has incontinence of his bladder and at the end of the time length of his drops he tends to get drips from his anus. We are not sure if he just gets into something outside that causes it or it is his drops preventing it as Ron is not great at keeping track of the drops or his spotting.

So when Ron came to bed he started to pull back his blanket and sheets only to realize Tupac had urinated a lot. Again not his fault, he does this when deep asleep sometimes. He is old and badly injured on his lower back end. We think he got hit by a golf cart because he is terrified by them. So Ron and I changed the bed at 10 pm last night.

Ron has gone out to visit with a nurse he worked with and I started washing the sheet and blankets from last night. As I lifted the bedding up to put it in the washer the smell and sight of a pee soaked circle right in my face triggered first one and then more memories. I lost track of time, I was that boy having been peed on while on my mat in the hallway, I was the boy so proud of his first bed to be forced to beg to drink a teen male’s urine rather than have it on my first bed at age 8 … only to have them do it to me anyway. To have to kneel or stand as the males peed on my pants or in them knowing I would be given public punishment by the adopting parents for peeing myself. Forced to accept them doing to me something I had no way to stop, too small and too weak to stop to do anything, and then suffering the public punishment in front of them as they laughed and mocked me with the approval of the adopting parents.

I went to the bathroom next to the washer / dryer and threw up in the toilet. Once done with that I just sat there on the floor and cried. A damned 62 year old man, once a decorated enlisted military man who served in two branches of the service, sitting on the bathroom floor with my back to the sink cabinet sobbing for remembered past pains, hurts, and emotions I can never seem to make stay away but resurface again and again and again into eternity. They tear at me, destroy me it seems like every time.

Finally I was able to calm down. Ron was gone so I had to deal with no support. Yes I could have called Randy but I did not have my phone and even the thought to find it was something I couldn’t manage. Damn even as I try to type this I keep breaking out in tears. I sometimes wonder if the living abusers ever feel bad over what they did to me? But I know not, they were too well schooled and inducted into hate by their parents. So I finished putting stuff in the laundry, kept drying my eyes and blowing my nose.

When I got back to my Pink Palace office … which I will be leaving soon for a grand better brighter room, I took the dry up nasal spray and sat down to write this. I struggled as always … should I burden my friends with it … Well they did not do this it is not their fault. Hey they are really good people I shouldn’t throw this dirt on them and soil them with my own past it is not their fault!

These people don’t deserve to have these thoughts in their head like you do, give them a fuck break from your whining you piece of damaged shit the voice of my adoptive father screams in my head! It rings so loud along with the other names called me. The worst were when he was angry or during the abuse. But his general feeling about me he beat into me. Now I am so tired. I want to quit. I want it all to end. I want to give up.

But there is joy in my life I force myself to remember. I have my wonderful husband of nearly 35 year. I have a home, and enough income to survive. I have good things in my life. But they only cover the screams of the abused child I was, even raped after I came home from the military by them until I was able to escape to my own home and then to the safety of Ron’s protection from them.

Thank you for letting me write this. As always it is a horrible fight to do it, it is like being abused all over again to describe it. But the process of doing that, of voicing the hurt makes is so much less, drives it back into the holes it hides into. I need to write to get it out of me. I am so grateful there are people who understand this and willing to listen as I do, taking unto themselves their own memories my writing may trigger. I am so sorry I might do that to others, to hurt them. But it is the only way I know to get some relief myself. So I thank you all greatly. Hugs.

Peace & Justice History for 1/25

OK, So There Is Bad News Within,

but the reason I’m posting it is so we can be aware, and be better able to help our own neighbors locally. It may not be ours to start writing letters and calling on ACLU or any of those things, but maybe simply keeping our eyes open for the regular people we know or interact with. So here is this, which came to me from Death Penalty Action. It’s the first 10 EO’s issued today, plus some policy info.

All of the Day 1 executive actions Trump has announced so far

Updated January 20, 20251:50 PM ET By Lexie Schapitl Franco Ordoñez

For updates, context and analysis of Donald Trump’s 2025 inauguration, check out NPR’s live blog throughout the day Monday.

President Trump is expected to sign a flurry of executive orders, memorandums and proclamations after his inauguration on Monday, reversing many of his predecessors’ policies and reinstating actions from his first term in office.

The actions are expected to address a range of issues, including campaign priorities like border security and culture war issues like DEI policies.

Here’s what we know so far:

Immigration

Trump is expected to declare a national emergency at the U.S. southern border, designate criminal cartels as terror groups and end birthright citizenship for children born to immigrant parents without legal status, according to incoming White House officials who spoke to reporters on a call on condition of background.

Trump will also reinstate the “Remain in Mexico” policy, which would require some asylum seekers at the southern border to wait in Mexico for their hearings in U.S. immigration court, the officials said.

The moves are some of 10 sweeping executive actions on border security that incoming officials say Trump plans to sign on Monday:

Declare a national emergency at the border: The officials on the call said this action will allow U.S. armed forces to finish the border wall and allow the secretary of defense to deploy members of the armed forces and National Guard to the border.
“Clarify” the military’s role in border security: This action “directs the military to prioritize our borders” and protect territorial integrity “by repelling forms of invasion, including unlawful mass migration, narcotics trafficking, human smuggling and trafficking and other criminal activities,” the officials said.
End “catch and release,” continue building the wall, and end “Remain in Mexico”
Designate criminal cartels as terrorists: This will allow the U.S. to more easily remove members of groups like Tren de Aragua, a transnational criminal organization from Venezuela, and MS-13.
Suspend refugee resettlement: The official said the U.S. would suspend refugee resettlement for at least four months.
End asylum and close the border to those without legal status via proclamation: Officials said they are planning to end asylum entirely and close the border to those without legal status via proclamation, “which creates an immediate removal process without possibility of asylum.”
End birthright citizenship: The officials said the White House plans to end birthright citizenship, which is enshrined in the 14^th Amendment. They argued the amendment does not recognize automatic birthright citizenship for children born in the United States to parents without legal status. This action is likely to see immediate legal challenges.
Enhance vetting and screening: The officials said they are going to “enhance vetting and screening of illegal aliens.”
“Protect American citizens against invasion”: Officials said this “equips agents and officers of ICE and CBP with the authorities” they need to deport people from the U.S.
Restore the death penalty: “This action in particular, directs the Attorney General to seek capital punishment for the murder of law enforcement officers and capital crimes committed by illegal aliens. It encourages state agencies and district attorneys to bring capital state charges for these crimes,” the officials said.

Defining ‘sex’ and ending DEI programs

Trump will sign an executive action on Monday that says it’s the policy of the United States to recognize two biologically distinct sexes — male and female — an incoming White House official speaking on background told reporters Monday.

“These are sexes that are not changeable, and they are grounded in fundamental and incontrovertible reality,” the official said.

The change will require government agencies to use the definitions on documents like passports, visas and employee records the official said. Taxpayer funds will not be allowed to be used for “transition services,” the official said.

A second action will end diversity, equity and inclusion programs in the federal government, the official said, giving as examples environmental justice programs in the U.S. Department of Agriculture, as well as diversity training.

National energy emergency and “electric vehicle mandate”

Trump intends to declare a national energy emergency on Monday, aiming to cut red tape and regulations for the energy industry, and a second one specific to Alaskan resources, an incoming White House official told reporters on a background conference call.

“That national energy emergency will unlock a variety of different authorities that will enable our nation to quickly build again, to produce coal and natural resources, to create jobs, to create prosperity and to strengthen our nation’s national security,” the official said. The official said energy prices are too high, but declined on the call to name a lower target price.

The action will end what incoming Trump officials call the “electric vehicle mandate” and will end “efforts to curtail consumer choice on the things that consumers use every single day, whether it be showerheads, whether it be gas stoves, whether it be dishwashers and the like,” the official said.

Trump has long railed against energy efficiency standards on the campaign trail, and specifically taken aim at “electric vehicle mandates,” a term he uses to encompass all policies designed to encourage a transition to battery-powered cars. Rules actually requiring 100% of vehicles to be electric do not exist on the federal level.

Inflation

Trump will sign a presidential memorandum on inflation Monday, an official from the incoming administration said. The official did not provide additional details.

NPR correspondents Tamara Keith, Ximena Bustillo and Camila Domonoske contributed to this report.

Peace & Justice History for 1/14

https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistoryjanuary.htm#january14

Peace & Justice History for 1/11

https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistoryjanuary.htm#january11

Free Idea: What If Senate Democrats DIDN’T Vote For The Fascist Anti-Immigrant Bloody Shirt Bill? by Rebecca Schoenkopf

Oh, we’re helping Trump deport people for more minor offenses now, to avoid being ‘soft’ on immigration? Read on Substack

(I’m not putting the piece here, because it’s obvious to me that I’m not the only one who dislikes the news of the day. However, if your writingtapping fingers are warm or want to be, there’s an action within; writing or calling to our US Senators to oppose the Laken Riley Act. The article, couched in angry humor/humorous anger, gives good insight on the act, along with listing unintended consequences, because of course Republicans don’t read what they write and can’t think ahead about what words mean. Anyway, go read, or not; just call or email your Senators. And thanks!)

I made a mistake, read what I shouldn’t, now can not stop thinking about it.

**** Trigger warning, talk of abuse with a few graphic details. ****

I had stopped going to the male survivor site as it was causing me to spiral badly into the bad places in my head, triggering my negative emotions, getting seriously depressed and spending hours stuck in my memories, crying, then having horrible nightmares as I tried to sleep.

Look even without going to the site I still scream out in my sleep. It is agonizing because in my dreams I am struggling to verbalize the words, get them out and it feels like my mouth is locked shut, sort of my like my lips are sewn together. In my nightmares I can speak and scream normally until it gets so intense it seems I struggle to get the sounds out and they become much more guttural. That seems to be when I am getting audible in the awake world. When it seems I am able to unlock my jaws or rip my lips open is when I am in reality shouting out in my sleep. Ron had to wake me just two days ago when I was shouting help help help. I spared him the description of the abuse even though he is always willing for me to tell him the memories or nightmares because he knows it is very helpful for me to talk about it or get it out. Especially when it has just happened.

Anyway back to this morning. So a new friend who is a survivor who has been on the Male Survivor site much more than I have been and posts there often about everything going on in his life, like I do here, this person has been saying to me that they wrote about their holidays so could I go to their posts to see what had been going on with them. I went to the MS site, I started reading new posts before I got to his posts. And I never made it to Steve’s posts.

The post was about being anally raped and the person leaving their cum inside you that you try to prevent leaking out. The post and the people replying / joining the conversation all also wrote about their underwear being stained with poop and cum or in some cases blood. The conversation was about trying to get rid of or wash the evidence out before it was discovered by a mother or other who cared for them and they did not want to find out they were being abused.

I did not have this problem. My abuse was much more open and known in the house so I did not have to hide it or wash my sheets after. I did get in trouble if I wore my white underwear after without cleaning myself up which would leave stains / marks in the white underwear. So those if I saw that I would wash them myself soon as I could like the people in the conversation said they did. When the wet underwear was discovered after a few times of me doing that, I was caught in the act cleaning them. I was yelled at for it, told I was so stupid then pulled to the kitchen in front of everyone while naked, while my adoptive mother “taught me how to wipe my bottom and clean myself” after being raped. I was told to rather than lay in the bed or put my underwear on, that as soon as the person was finished with me and they did not want to use me anymore I should go empty myself. Then wipe / wash my bottom. I then had to repeat and show I knew how to do this in front of the laughing hell spawn. All that taught me was to wash and dry them before I put them in the laundry basket.

So this brings me to what I can not get out of my head this morning. Before I got side tracked by my memories and started the downward spiral, I was busy reading news articles, adding to my posting of crazy stuff that the right was doing, and gathering memes of Sunday’s meme post. Then it all came to a halt and I started to crash. Writing this out is helping. So what about the above triggered me?

See I could hold it in, the fluids inside me normally while laying in the bed, or in the short timeframe from when it was over until I could get to the bathroom or if outside until I could dump / empty my bowels, but that left nothing to wipe with so I would have to carry my underwear until I could do so hoping not to soil my pants. But there was one place and time I couldn’t do any of that. It was when raped and abused at school.

Please stay with me and try to understand the feelings / thinking of a small kid as I try to describe this without being too graphic. It started at school when I was 7 and continued but tapered off as I became a teenager. So imagine being 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, or 12 and being taken to a supply closet, empty room, or after school hours to the principal’s office. Once there told to drop my pants. Being fondled and touched. Then ordered to my knees to give oral sex to a male. So far none of that deals with what I wrote about above, soiling myself. But that comes from when instead of being told to kneel, I was instead told to turn around and stand on something, or picked up and draped over something, (more than once being forced to lay over the copy machine as it dug into my chest / belly while my ass was used to make the male staff / teachers happy) when I was very small I would be made to take my pants off then placed on my back on a shelf with my legs pined up as my back was bent to position my butt hole correctly for their use.

Ok I tried to put if off as long as I could. This is the part I was trying to get to and that the conversation on the site was about. After being used, trusted into sometimes with lube and sometimes without, filled with those fluids and possible messiness, my bottom full of the ejaculate of the guy who just … fucked me, I would be told to get dressed and go back to class. Of course the person who used me wanted to make the time I was away from class as short as possible if I was taken from class for the abuse. So if I had been summoned or escorted from the classroom, I would be told to get dressed quickly and return to class. I knew better than to tell. If it had been painful and hurtful, I would be told to stop crying and wipe my face on my shirt.

So this gets back to the stained underwear. I would have to put my underwear on, no choice, and go back to class not knowing if I was messy or not. I would only know my butt hurt, maybe my belly, back, or legs would also hurt. I would have to enter the classroom trying to not show anything wrong, feeling like everyone in the room was looking at me knowing what had just happened, what I had just done. Again if it was oral all I struggled with was the taste in my mouth. But if it had been anal specially if it had been forceful, in a bad position for me, or if no lube had been used, then my butt / asshole would be very sore and full of fluids. I would be forced to try to sit still, and desperately pinch my butt cheeks together as painful as that was or let the liquids mixed with poop ooze out creating both smell and stains. Most teachers soon understood and did not scold me for not paying attention or being not being still in my seat. It was the same as when I had been given a belting, spanking, or bad paddling before school, they seem to understand the pain I was in that my clothing / pants covered.

As soon as I could or when the teacher would quietly whisper in my ear asking if I needed to use the bathroom, I would leave the classroom walk carefully to the bathroom where I would rush into a toilet stall. I would also check my underwear as best I could. I would do the same as I walked or rode my bike home. I lived about a mile and half from the school. It was so much better in the warm months trying to do it in when bundled up for the cold was horrible. Because in warm months I could run in to the woods or somewhere not able to be easily seen, strip off my lower clothing and then remove my underwear, and redress. Then I could take the underwear to a brook like the one we had behind our home, wash the underwear, hang it in the sun to dry off something where I should be able to retrieve it later. Stories of what happened the few times I was caught doing this another time.

Many abuse victims just threw their soiled clothing out. I couldn’t do that. Punishment for losing my clothing was as severe as for soiling them.

So that was what has destroyed my emotions and focus for the last 7 hours. Taking the time to write this has helped me calm down and recenter. But the remembered pain of being so small, the over whelming emotion of feeling that everyone knew when I entered the classroom, and the fear that it was leaking into my underwear knowing that I would be publicly punish and possibly also privately punish if they were stained. Maybe most parents finding semen, blood, or poop stains all over the back of their child’s underwear would cause them to question what happened or rush to defend / help their son. Not mine, if they felt anything at all maybe they were happy it was happening to me. Maybe it relieved their own guilt knowing others did the same to me. I don’t know.

Just more from my childhood I have to deal with. Anyway, no more meme hunting today, nor news about the stuff the right is doing. Today I am going to answer comments and concentrate on the love and out pouring of support I get from this community. Oh and tomorrow I have a doctor’s appointment. Hugs.

So About Meta

Personally, I don’t think it’s surrender on the part of Meta, nor any of the other media moguls. It’s all of one piece-they’re all in it together with the new 47th president. I’ve read this from others, too, both last night and this morning. We the people are not part of the club. Anyway, here is this.

Meta surrenders to the right on speech

“I really think this a precursor for genocide,” a former employee tells Platformer

Casey Newton

Jan 7, 2025 — 12 min read

Snippet:

I. The past

Donald Trump’s surprising victory in the 2016 US presidential election sparked a backlash against tech platforms in general and against Meta in particular. The company then known as Facebook was battered by revelations that its network dramatically amplified the reach of false stories about Trump and his opponent, Hillary Clinton, and was used as part of a successful effort by Russia to sow division in US politics and tilt the election in favor of Trump.

Chastened by the criticism, Meta set out to shore up its defenses. It hired 40,000 content moderators around the world, invested heavily in building new technology to analyze content for potential harms and flag it for review, and became the world’s leading funder of third-party fact-checking organizations. It spent $280 million to create an independent Oversight Board to adjudicate the most difficult questions about online speech. It disrupted dozens of networks of state-sponsored trolls who sought to use Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp to spread propaganda and attack dissenters.

CEO Mark Zuckerberg had expected that these moves would generate goodwill for the company, particularly among the Democrats who would retake power after Trump lost in 2020. Instead, he found that disdain for the company remained strongly bipartisan. Republicans scorned him for policies that disproportionately punished the right, who post more misinformation and hate speech than the left does. Democrats blamed him for the country’s increasingly polarized politics and decaying democracy. And all sides pilloried him for the harms that his apps cause in children — an issue that 42 state attorneys general are now suing him over.

Last summer, the threats against Zuckerberg turned newly personal. In 2020, Zuckerberg and his wife had donated $419.5 million to fund nonpartisan election infrastructure projects. (Another effort that had seemingly generated no goodwill for him or Meta whatsoever.) All that the money had done was to help people vote safely during the pandemic. But Republicans twisted Zuckerberg’s donation into a scandal; Trump — who lost the election handily but insisted it had been stolen from him — accused Zuckerberg of plotting against him.

“We are watching him closely,” Trump wrote in a coffee-table book published ahead of the 2024 election, “and if he does anything illegal this time he will spend the rest of his life in prison.”

By the end of 2024, Zuckerberg had given up on finding any middle path through the polarized and opposite criticisms leveled against him by Republicans and Democrats. His rival Elon Musk had spent the past year showing how Republican party support can be bought — cheaply.

In business and in life, Zuckerberg’s motivation has only ever been to win. And a doddering, transactional Trump presented Meta with a rare opportunity for a fresh start.

All they would have to do is whatever Trump wanted them to do.

II. The announcements

On Tuesday, Meta announced the most significant changes to its content moderation policies since the aftermath of the 2016 election. The changes include:

Ending its fact-checking program, which funds third-party organizations to check the claims in viral Facebook and Instagram posts and downrank them when they are found to contain falsehoods. It will be replaced with a clone of Community Notes, X’s volunteer fact-checking program.
Eliminating restrictions on some forms of speech previously considered harmful, including some criticisms of immigrants, women, and transgender people.
Re-calibrating automated content moderation systems to prioritize only high-severity violations of content policy, such as those involving drugs and terrorism, and reviewing lower-severity violations only when reported by users. (This sounds boring but might be the most important change of all, as we’ll get to)
Re-introducing discussion of current events, which the company calls “civic content,” into Facebook, Instagram, and Threads.
Moving content moderation teams from California to Texas to fight the perception that Meta’s moderation reflects a liberal Californian bias. (Never mind that the company has always had content moderation teams based in Texas, or that it was Zuckerberg and not the moderators who set the company’s policies.)

Zuckerberg announced these changes in an Instagram Reel; Joel Kaplan, a Republican operative and longtime Meta executive who last week replaced Nick Clegg as the company’s president of public policy, discussed the changes in an appearance on “Fox and Friends.” (See transcripts of both here.)

One way to understand these changes is as a marketing exercise, intended to convey a sense of profound change to an audience of one. In this, Meta appears to have succeeded; Trump today called the company’s changes “excellent” and said that the company has “come a long way.” (“Mr. Trump also said Meta’s change was ‘probably’ a result of the threats he had made against the company and Mr. Zuckerberg,” dryly noted the Times’ Mike Isaac and Theodore Schleifer.)

Whether this will be enough to get Trump to end the current antitrust prosecution against Meta, or otherwise advocate for the company in regulatory affairs, remains to be seen. By the cynical calculus of the company’s communications and policy teams, though, one assumes that Trump’s comments inspired a round of high-fives in the company’s Washington, DC offices.

But these changes are likely to substantially increase the amount of harmful speech on Meta’s platforms, according to 10 current and former employees who spoke to Platformer on Tuesday.

Start with the end of Meta’s fact-checking partnerships, which perhaps generated the most headlines of the company’s changes on Tuesday. While the company has been gradually lowering its investment in fact-checking for a couple years now, Meta’s abandonment of the project will have real effects: on the fact-checking organizations for whom Meta was a primary source of revenue, but also in the Facebook and Instagram feeds of which Meta is an increasingly begrudging steward. (snip-MORE. Go read; he left Substack because of the nazis, and made Platformer to get his writing to people. It’s free to read, and you don’t have to subscribe, either.)