All Episodes

January 13, 2025 12 mins
Buck Sexton dives into the latest Big Tech shake-ups: Facebook axes its fact-checkers after years of partisan content policing, with Mark Zuckerberg admitting to pressure from Biden’s team to censor voices during COVID. Meanwhile, YouTube continues to throttle conservative content, leaving creators like Buck fighting for fair treatment. As platforms like X rise and TikTok faces government scrutiny, Buck explores how these changes could reshape the fight for free speech in the digital age. Will Big Tech loosen its grip or tighten control?

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Mark as Played
Transcript

Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
You're listening to the Buck Sexton Show podcast, make sure
you subscribe to the podcast on the iHeartRadio app or
wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to the Buck Brief
Big shakeups in the social media world. First of all,
the fact checkers have been told to get fact checked.
I guess they've been sent packing by Facebook, which I

(00:33):
found particularly interesting because I have been the target of
the fact checkers myself in the past, as in their
idiots and their wrong and their partisan hacks on COVID
in particular, and they would come after me and I
still have some of these old articles written about me
by PolitiFact. These people are absolute imbeciles. Finally, Mark Zuckerberg

(00:54):
decided we're getting rid of this fact checker regime. But
now on the Rogan podcast, he lit it up even
more and pointed out that it was the Biden administration.
Biden administration officials calling and screaming and yelling at Facebook
employees to move things off of Facebook, including jokes and memes.

Speaker 2 (01:13):
Listen, exactly, these people from the Biden administration would call
up our team and like scream at them and curse,
and it's like these documents are It's all kind of
out there. Did you record any of those phone calls?
I don't know. I don't think. I don't think we were,
but but I think, oh, listen, I mean, there are emails,
the emails are published, it's all, it's all kind of
out there, and and they're like and basically it just

(01:38):
got to this point where we were like, no, we're
not gonna We're not gonna take down things that are true.
That's ridiculous. They want us to take down this meme
of Leonardo DiCaprio looking at a TV talking about how
ten years from now or something, you know, you're going
to see an ad that says, okay, if you took
a COVID vaccine, your eligible, you know, you know, like

(01:58):
for for this kind of payment, except this sort of
like class action lawsuit type meme. And they're like, no,
you have to take that down. And we just said no,
we're not. We're actually take down humor and satire. We're
not gonna take down things that are that are true.
And then at some point, I guess, uh, I don't know,
it flipped a bit. I mean, Biden when he was

(02:18):
he gave some statement at some point. I don't know
if it's a press conference or to some journalists where
basically was like, these guys are killing people and and
and I don't know. Then like all these different agencies
and branches of government basically just like started investigating coming
after our company. It was it was brutal. It was brutal.

Speaker 1 (02:39):
Wow. Okay, that's about as egregious of a violation of
the First Amendments I think you're gonna find from any
administrations stretching back in the post World War you ear,
it's outrageous that this was going on, especially because they
were wrong too. Isn't that the most perfect part of
the whole thing. It's not just that they're censoring and
they shouldn't censor. They were censoring and they were wrong.

(03:02):
All the merits, all the vaccines are going to prevent
the spread. No they didn't. Oh masks work, No they don't.
I used to get hit with this off the time.
By the way, YouTube should be next YouTube, which this
show technically goes on. We have very few subscribers on YouTube.
I hope you'll join and subscribe. They're just so a
number goes up a little bit, But that's because of YouTube.
That's not because of me. I mean, I do a
huge radio show for millions of people. I have lots

(03:24):
and lots of people who listen to this podcast, and
yet I can't get above like a thousand YouTube followers
because they keep shut, they shut down, they throttle, they
it's it's a there are a bunch of little communists
over there, really, and they won't they won't be fair
minded to concern. They won't be fair at all. The
conservatives anyway gets me fired up. But the fact that
the Biden administration was as aggressive and as wrong as

(03:47):
they are as they were about COVID and unrepentant about
the whole thing too. That's one of the other things
that I think doesn't get nearly enough attention. They were
wrong about everything and they have. There's no part of
them that says, you know what, we're sorry. There's no
part of them that feels like maybe they should have
done things a little bit differently. No, they think that

(04:09):
they're good people to smart people, and so it's their
right to shut you down, shut people like me down
from telling you the truth. Even if I'm right and
there wrong, it doesn't matter, doesn't matter. They think that
they have some sort of special gift where they get
to do this and it does nothing else, you know,
nothing else can be taken into account. It's really astonishing

(04:31):
and I'm happy to see that Facebook is moving in
a more free speech direction. I'm very aware of the
fact that Mark Zuckerberg is an absolute opportunist. I mean,
have you seen the social network. I think it's pretty
clear Zuckerberg goes wherever it's best for Zuckerberg. You know,
he's always maneuvering for his own interests. I don't think
that he's a guy of lofty ideals and put it

(04:54):
that way. But it's a good thing that right now
we are in a place where we're in a place
where he feels like the politics now have shifted and
the power has shifted, and so Facebook will become a
place where there can be more done for free speech

(05:18):
and the basic free exchange of ideas. I mean, just
even things like satire to do anything. You're not allowed
to say that people who think that there are women
who are men are crazy on the social media platforms.
That might even get me flagged here on YouTube. You're
allowed to say it on Facebook. Now, isn't it amazing
you were ever not allowed to say that. You know,
that's your honest belief is a lot of rationale, a

(05:40):
lot of stuff you could point you to back that up,
like you know, delusion and being disconnected from reality. But yeah,
I think that Facebook is making moves in a better
direction here, which is to be encouraged. And the real
nex target has to be YouTube. There has to be
pressure brought to bear by this incoming Trump administration on

(06:01):
YouTube to not do what it does, which is I
think deceptively. I'll use that word. There's other words you
could use. Deceptively suppress some speech and not you know,
not others. I mean, they're not being fair to their
user base, and they're not being fair with what their

(06:21):
terms of service are. It's all very partisan operation. And
you know, Google is the biggest threat to your freedom
right now of any company in the United States. Google
is the biggest ally of the Kamala Harris regime of
absolute incompetence and dei buffoons. Google is the ally of
that on the left, unabashed, and they've become so rich

(06:44):
and so powerful that they think that they can just
do whatever they want, and they have been able to
up to this point. But Facebook thoughts so too, And
I think Facebook realizes x is getting better and better
all the time, and you know X is going to
be able to, i think, replace a lot of these
social media functions that these other places have. You know,
once you can build a massive video user base, for example,

(07:05):
on X and monetize it in a similar way to
you can on YouTube, well, you know, people's attitudes about
YouTube is going to change very quickly. And I think
that would be a great thing because YouTube has been horrible.
I mean I've never been able to as I've said before,
and then get I get pissed about it because it's
so unfair. YouTube has shut me down. They've I've had
I've had numerous channels shut down. I don't even see

(07:27):
anything controversial just over COVID stuff and you know, and
over transgender stuff. I'm in a few things where I'm
not allowed to to the point also where I think
some of these conservatives who somehow never get shut down
or never I'm like, how do they manage that? How
does that happen? You know, they don't get suspended, they
agree with me on things, do they say it on YouTube? Anyway? Uh? Yeah,

(07:48):
I think YouTube has been terrible and completely unfair and
a disgrace to free speech and just to the basic
principles of the free exchange of ideas that any free
society should uphold. So uh, Facebook, moving this direction is
a better thing. We'll talk here about TikTok in a second,
because you know, TikTok's days are numbered. TikTok goes to
the clock. They got nine days to either get sold

(08:11):
or get shut down. The new year's a time of
reflection for the past year and hope for the year
to come. It's been very turbulent, as you know for
Israel and the Jewish people, given what's gone on the
multi front war, the unprecedented rise in global anti Semitism.
This is where the allies of Israel need to step
up and help the Jewish people. Your support of the
IFCJ has saved lives and answered prayers. Thanks to your

(08:33):
generosity so many of you listeners, bomb shelters have been
built in place, life saving food and emergency supplies have
been provided to evacuees and those in critical need, and
protective gear and medical equipment has been distributed to first
responders on the front lines. But there's more work to do.
Join the movement of those who have raised their voices
to support Israel and the Jewish people. We ask you
to continue your prayers and ongoing support by visiting SUPPORTIFCJ

(08:56):
dot org. That's one word, support IFCJ dot org. Now TikTok.
As you know, I'm for a conservative at least, pretty
partial to TikTok. I enjoy it. I think that TikTok
is pretty good way to you know, kill some time.
It's fun. It's a Chinese spying app, they say, though,

(09:19):
or rather it's a huge risk of Chinese spying. I still,
as you know, I view Google as a much worse
threat to your civil liberties than than whatever they're doing
out of China. The ownership is actually far more diffuse
than what you'd be led to believe. I mean, there's
private equity groups that own American private equity groups that
own a whole bunch of TikTok. It's not just like

(09:42):
the Chinese Communist Party sitting in some you know, command
and control room making all the determinations. I think the
threat is overblown, but I think the government's allowed to
make the determination that there's a national security threat from
foreign ownership of a media platform. I get it. I
think that they're excessive on this issue. I also think
that they're bought off by Google. Sorry, I know I

(10:04):
sound kind of monomaniacal about this, but I think that
some of the other big social media platforms, the more
is establishing entrenched players here are happy to see TikTok
go away. It's a it's competition for them, and it's
far more popular among the younger uh, you know, the
younger set. So yeah, it's something that I think, you know,

(10:30):
we have to see and and continue to focus in on.
Why is it that they do this, Why is it
that they have decided that they're going to get rid
of it? Yeah, I I don't. I don't trust this
at all as just a national curry thing. I think
there's more going on, but looks like it's either going
to get sold or get shut down. So that's where

(10:52):
it's all heading, I've learned. So there's so much cool
stuff on TikTok Uh. There's a fitness guy higher up
wellness who's great, who does really good sort of just
straight to the camera videos on all aspects of fitness
and mindset. There's that guy Donnie Dust who makes the
like tomahawks out of rocks and does all this cool stuff.
He's sort of of I don't know what you'd say.
His skill set is you just can craft things. Then

(11:15):
there's a a lot of good cooking stuff. The guy
who do I watch on TikTok, he's uh oh Man,
notorious foodie. His videos are Man, it's just the food.
It looks always delicious and the skilled which he pulls
it all together is really cool. There's this great stuff

(11:36):
on TikTok, and so all this good content is going
to go down. I guess it's going to get moved
or merged into like Instagram. But Instagram is just not
as easy of an interface. It's just not so Yeah,
they managed to convince everybody this is the big problem
we'll see uh growing and growing up and living in
New York City, I was exposed a lot of Wall
Street stuff. But no matter what, you got to make

(11:59):
sure that you're getting good advice, good research, right, And
there's a lot of it, but finding the good stuff
is hard. And that's where Mark Shakin comes in. He's
provided fifty years of insight about the street and he
built an indicator that's nearly every trading terminal. To this day,
it's got nearly one million people using his tools. Right now,
his systems are signaling a big shift in the AI markets.

(12:20):
You might choose to research whether the wealthy individuals and
hedgephones are quietly dumping hundreds of thousands of shares of
the world's most popular tech stocks. Mark is stepping forward
to explain why that's happening. He has a free briefing
for you at stocks twenty twenty five dot com. That's
stocks twenty twenty five dot com. I'm gonna go drink
a lot of fluids and tea and everything so my

(12:40):
voice and my head and everything is normal next week. Sorry,
I've been so sick this week team, but we'll be
hitting the ground running on Monday and I look forward
to it. Have a great weekend, Shield time.
Advertise With Us

Host

Buck Sexton

Buck Sexton

Popular Podcasts

Dateline NBC

Dateline NBC

Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com

The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show

The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show

The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show. Clay Travis and Buck Sexton tackle the biggest stories in news, politics and current events with intelligence and humor. From the border crisis, to the madness of cancel culture and far-left missteps, Clay and Buck guide listeners through the latest headlines and hot topics with fun and entertaining conversations and opinions.

Music, radio and podcasts, all free. Listen online or download the iHeart App.

Connect

© 2025 iHeartMedia, Inc.