FILE: Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta, testifies during the US Senate Judiciary Committee hearing “Big Tech and the Online Child Sexual Exploitation Crisis” in Washington on Jan. 31, 2024.

Tuesday morning, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced a major overhaul to the content policies for Facebook, Instagram and Threads, cutting back restrictions on several politically contentious topics and putting an end to the company’s independent fact-checking program. And while he had everyone’s attention, he got in a dig at California.

In his five-minute video announcement, Zuckerberg framed the policy shifts as a return to his Menlo Park company’s “roots around free expression.” He argued that the company’s content moderation systems have made too many mistakes and enforced censorship, and he said the November elections mark a “cultural tipping point towards once again prioritizing speech.”

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The statements, and the policy overhaul, appear to be aimed at assuaging President-elect Donald Trump, who was banned from Facebook for two years following the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. Prior to the 2024 election, Zuckerberg ditched a previous get-out-the-vote effort........

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