Meta has restored several pro-life Facebook accounts just days after attorneys sent a letter demanding the social media giant do so in the wake of Meta’s recent promise to support free speech. The Facebook and Instagram accounts for pro-life news site LifeNews.com, LifeNews founder Steven Ertelt, and pro-life mom Abby Covington were restored this week after being suspended for months, according to a press release provided exclusively to The Daily Wire. The move came just a week after their legal team at Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) sent a letter to Meta calling on the platform to reverse its decision to suspend the accounts. “Restoring pro-life speech to one of the world’s largest platforms is a major step in the right direction,” Phil Sechler, senior counsel at ADF, said in a statement. “We’re grateful to see Steven Ertelt, Abby Covington, and LifeNews back on Meta platforms, where they will continue to use their voice to spread family-friendly and life-affirming messages. There’s no doubt that Mark Zuckerberg and Meta have plenty of work ahead to build back trust with the public, but correcting these past mistakes will go a long way to do just that,” Sechler said. In May, Ertelt found his Facebook account had been permanently disabled after he posted a video showing a doctor performing a C-section. During the procedure, the unborn child can be seen grabbing the doctor’s finger. CELEBRATE #47 WITH 47% OFF DAILYWIRE+ MEMBERSHIPS + A FREE $20 GIFT “An unborn baby can’t be just a clump of cells when he or she is grabbing the doctor’s hand,” read the video’s caption. Facebook permanently disabled Ertelt’s account and informed him the post failed to follow its Community Standards on “child sexual exploitation,” his attorneys said. Because LifeNews used Ertelt’s Facebook account to create the LifeNews Instagram account, the group’s Instagram account is effectively permanently suspended as well. “These account suspensions have caused serious harm to Mr. Ertelt and LifeNews,” the ADF attorneys wrote in their letter to Meta. In a statement Friday, Ertelt expressed hope that Facebook has turned over a new leaf on free speech. “Facebook should not have suspended our accounts for posting a pro-life medical video,” Ertelt said. “And it should not have taken 8 months and a letter from attorneys for Facebook and Instagram to finally restore access to our accounts. But this is an example of the kind of censorship and discrimination pro-life conservatives have come to expect from Facebook over the years. With its recent changes, we hope Facebook will truly allow free speech on its platforms.” Covington, the Christian pro-life mother of three, had her Facebook account permanently suspended after she posted about her family’s adoption journey. In her post, she described her family’s Christian faith and encouraged expecting mothers to reach out if they were thinking about putting their baby up for adoption. “We believe children are a gift from the Lord,” she wrote. “God has given us the desire to support an expecting mother who will choose life for her baby through the gift of adoption! We love our children, and our prayer is to expand our family while providing a safe & loving home.” Covington received a barrage of hateful messages after her post was shared in a private group, prompting her to delete it. One user wrote, “I’m adopted and I’d s*** in your mouth out of spite while you were asleep if I’d been raised that way.” Facebook then informed her that her account did not follow its Community Standards on “human exploitation,” her attorneys said. The platform disabled her Instagram account, as well as all of her Facebook accounts, including the one for her jewelry, skincare, and makeup business. “The animus-filled messages that Mrs. Covington received from other Facebook users were understandably distressing,” the ADF attorneys wrote in their letter to Meta. “But what is most distressing to her is Facebook’s decision to permanently disable all six of her accounts, causing her significant financial and personal harm.” The ADF attorneys accused Meta of violating its free speech standards, breaching its own terms of service, and failing to uphold its promises. They had requested the company respond to their request to reinstate the pro-life accounts by January 22. “These situations provide a litmus test for whether Meta will live up to its public announcement or continue to censor and restrict the marketplace of ideas,” the legal team wrote. Last week, Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg released a video announcing sweeping changes to his company’s content moderation policies, promising “more speech and fewer mistakes.” “In recent years we’ve developed increasingly complex systems to manage content across our platforms, partly in response to societal and political pressure to moderate content. This approach has gone too far,” Meta said. “We want to fix that and return to that fundamental commitment to free expression,” the company said. Meta said it will end its third-party fact-checking program and move to a Community Notes model similar to what X, formerly Twitter, does. The company also said it will be “getting rid of a number of restrictions on topics like immigration, gender identity and gender that are the subject of frequent political discourse and debate,” and it will also recommend more political content if a user has indicated they are interested. Meta has been fiercely criticized in recent years for censoring political content such as the Hunter Biden laptop story, which broke just before the 2020 election.

Investor Kevin O’Leary said on Friday that he is willing to pay tens of billions of dollars for TikTok, the social media app that the U.S. Congress passed a law to force the sale of due to its control by the Chinese Communist Party. “As of midnight on the 19th, any service provider — that could be an Apple, that could be an Oracle, it could be a video compression technology company that’s being paid as a consulting service, any of them — to keep this thing alive, it’s subject to [a] $5,000 a day fine times 170 million,” he said. “That’s over $1 billion a day.” “So as of right now, unless the company enters into an agreement to be purchased by an American syndicate — and Biden, who’s the executive right now, waives for 90 days — this thing goes dark at midnight because who’s going to take on a billion risk at midnight?” he continued. “Who’s going to do that? What counsel would advise that? This is the most interesting, complicated, crazy situation I’ve ever been involved in. I’m really excited about it.” When asked by Fox News host Bill Hemmer what the price tag was to buy the social media company, O’Leary responded that he was willing to pay $20 billion for it. CELEBRATE #47 WITH 47% OFF DAILYWIRE+ MEMBERSHIPS + A FREE $20 GIFT “Right now, $20 billion is on the table — cash, cash,” he said. “$20 billion.” It was unclear what other investors were involved in the potential purchase of the social media app. Kevin O’Leary says “$20B is on the table” in bid to buy TikTok and explains that service providers “that keep this thing alive” after the deadline are subject to fines. pic.twitter.com/3en5Ziu8SP — Fox News (@FoxNews) January 17, 2025

President Joe Biden said during an interview late this week that things were going to drastically change in the U.S., but that those changes would happen “unrelated” to any political leader. Biden made the remarks during an interview with MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell during the final days of his presidency. “I really am concerned about how fragile democracy is,” Biden claimed. “Now, that sounds corny, but, I mean, I really am concerned, because you have heard me say it a hundred times. I really think we’re in an inflection point in history here, where, unrelated to any particular leader, things are going to change drastically.” In his farewell speech, President Biden hinted it. With Lawrence O’Donnell, the president reiterated it. Everybody knows it, but few are saying it. Come January 20th, America will become a facsimile of 1934 Germany. ?? pic.twitter.com/YVjSUrkwVx — Bill Madden (@maddenifico) January 17, 2025 “And it occurs every five or six generations,” he claimed. “And it usually is generated by technology.” “I mean, for example, if Gutenberg didn’t invent the printing press, how that would Europe have ever gotten united in any way, to understand what each country was thinking?” Biden asked. “I mean, it sounds stupid, but it really matters.” “Look, I got involved — I didn’t think about it this way, but I got involved in public life because of abuse of power,” he claimed. “I mean, my dad would say, the greatest sin of all is the abuse of power.” CELEBRATE #47 WITH 47% OFF DAILYWIRE+ MEMBERSHIPS + A FREE $20 GIFT Biden said that his stutter made him realize growing up that “there’s so damn many bullies around.” “The reason for all the safeguards out there is, in a very trite way to say it, is to keep the bullies from taking advantage of everybody else, the basic guardrails,” he added. “And I think that this concentration of enormous wealth and power in a circumstance where everything’s changing, and the biggest thing that’s changing is how we communicate with one another.” Biden complained that social media companies would not censor conservative opinions and demanded that rich people pay their “fair share in taxes.” “So I guess what I’m worried about is that the thing that keeps it on track are the guardrails, that there’s a Supreme Court that’s independent, but accountable,” he added. “There is a Congress that you speak your mind, but you’re held accountable to basic standards.”

'The closest you should come to it probably is Gorsuch'

'Wiggle room'

How Biden's Inner Circle Managed His Decline

Former conservative reporter-turned-liberal-media apologist Oliver Darcy spent the last few days leaking out news from his former employer about a new direction for the TV side of CNN that, while not radical in changing its liberal ideology, would be radical in personnel movement with Wolf Blitzer poised to host mornings and Jim Acosta being banished to midnight Eastern. In a year that’s slated to include hundreds of layoffs for the network whose ratings have cratered in recent years and accelerated after Election Day, Darcy said in his Status website Wednesday that the 76-year-old Blitzer has a new contract and would team with 11:00 a.m. Eastern hour CNN Newsroom host Pamela Brown for a two-hour show from 7:00 to 9:00 a.m. Eastern. It’s unclear what its title would be and if Blitzer’s long-running, early-evening show title of The Situation Room would survive. Blitzer — who’s arguably the single most recognizable CNN anchor or even personality of all time — has had that show since 2005 and been with the network since 1990. The other major headline came Thursday night as Darcy shared Acosta “received a peculiar telephone call from CNN chief Mark Thompson” on “early Wednesday night” with what he described as “a sudden and strange proposal” of “move your show” from weekdays at 10:00 a.m. Eastern “to midnight and anchor it until 2am ET.” Yes, dear readers, Thompson wants to keep Fake News Jim on the sinking ship that is CNN, but stash him away in what Darcy dubbed the “Siberia of television news,” seen live only by cogent west-coast viewers, those stuck abroad with CNN as one of the lone English-language channels in your hotel room, and news junkies unable to sleep. Fitting considering this was what Acosta was up to on Thursday. Perhaps it was an act of defiance and middle finger to his bosses! Regardless, Darcy clearly spoke with either Acosta on background or someone close to him. Needless to say, the insufferable cartoon character isn’t happy (click “expand): The offer caught Acosta off guard. He had no reason to believe that his current show would be on the chopping block. In fact, his ratings have historically been some of the network's strongest, both when he was anchoring on the weekends and now at 10am during the weekdays. On some days, Acosta even out-rates some of CNN’s prime time programs. So why force him to move his show to the 12am hour, a time slot occupied by virtually zero other hosts in the cable news business? The move would effectively exile Acosta to the Siberia of television news. He'd be manning down a shift when much of the country is fast asleep and viewership is at its lowest. Darcy cynically chalked it up to Thompson “curry[ing] favor with Donald Trump, who very much despises the CNN anchor” and cited a “media executive” as believing this will be a peace offering or “throw[ing] a bone” to Trump.” The official reasoning, Darcy suggested, would be someone’s hour had to be sacrificed to make room for the new, two-hour show with Blitzer and Brown and still keep CNN News Central — which currently is helmed by John Berman, Kate Bolduan, and Sara Sidner. The midnight Eastern hour having live programming wouldn’t be unprecedented. In 2015, the network made an attempt with CNN Newsroom Live from LA, anchored by John Vause and Isha Sesay. A more minor change considered is another promotion for Kasie Hunt to take the 4:00 p.m. Eastern hour and bump Jake Tapper’s The Lead from 5:00 to 7:00 p.m. Eastern. It’d be ironic for Hunt as she was originally brought to CNN in August 2021 following eight years at NBC and MSNBC to host her own show in that very hour....on CNN+ (and we all know how that turned out). With CNN+ having been aborted after just 30 days in spring 2022, Hunt remained chief national affairs analyst and fill-in host and took over Early Start in August 2023. By February 2024, her show assumed the CNN This Morning title following the morning news debacle that was the trio of Don Lemon, Kaitlan Collins, and Poppy Harlow (and briefly resuscitated by Harlow and Phil Mattingly). As for who’d take Hunt’s two hours, Darcy’s speculation would be one of former NPR host (Hunt’s fellow CNN+ refugees) Audie Cornish and CNN International host Rahel Solomon.

Panama City, FL – The defamation case brought by Navy veteran Zachary Young has left CNN permanently marked as “fake news” after his victory in court on Friday. As NewsBusters previously reported, the jury of six found CNN did defame Young, that they did it with malice, and they should be punished for it. The ruling spurred CNN to seek an undisclosed settlement. And in the wake of the trial NewsBusters was the first to speak with Young and his lead counsel Vel Freedman. NewsBusters asked Young what he hoped CNN and the larger media industry take away from this trial: My message is really just - it’s not vindictive, it never was. I was never trying to get revenge on CNN, but this is obviously something that’s very personal for me, and it has caused a lot of hardship for me and my family. And I wanted to make sure that it was exposed. And I hope that there was some lessons learned from it. And my real goal was to really improve the media in the U.S. and help them be able to be honest with themselves and take a look in the mirror. You know, sometimes change is not easy, sometimes it’s painful. And I think it had a good outcome in that regard. When asked what the result of the trial meant to him, Young said: “It’s been a long three years and I got the outcome that I wanted. I wanted vindication. I wanted to show what happened. And I was able to do that. It wasn’t a pleasant experience, but it had a great outcome.”   When asked what the result of the trial meant to him, Young said: “It’s been a long three years and I got the outcome that I wanted. I wanted vindication. I wanted to show what happened. And I was able to do that. It wasn’t a pleasant experience, but it had a great outcome.” pic.twitter.com/UkRktN62Ym — Nicholas Fondacaro (@NickFondacaro) January 18, 2025   Noting the lack of media attention until the trial was on going, NewsBusters informed Young of the fans he had accrued over the course of the trial. To them, he said: I appreciate the support. I mean, that’s really part of what I wanted to do from day one, is really to expose the problem. And it’s really not a problem that’s unique to CNN or any media outlet. I think this is just something that’s need getting progressively worse over the last few decades. “And I’m just really grateful for anyone who’s been interested enough to cover it, especially to you, being the first one,” he added. When speaking with Freedman, about broad implication this trial will have for the media at-large, he told NewsBusters:  In part of my closing argument, I said that this is a historic case, this is an opportunity to send a message. And I think - I hope that is the message taken. That, you know, just step back from sensationalized media, report the truth. We want to hear the truth, we want to hear the facts from our media. If you do that, the First Amendment protects you from these sort of results.   When speaking with Vel Freedman, lead counsel for Young, about broad implication this trial will have for the media at-large, he told NewsBusters: "In part of my closing argument, I said that this is a historic case, this is an opportunity to send a message. And I think - I hope… pic.twitter.com/vT6rOnIVI4 — Nicholas Fondacaro (@NickFondacaro) January 18, 2025   In a statement, CNN said:  We remain proud of our journalists and are 100% committed to strong, fearless and fair-minded reporting at CNN, though we will of course take what useful lessons we can from this case. In reality, CNN put multiple reporters and editors on the stand that refused to apologize, opposed the "disingenuous apology" (to quote a juror) CNN issued, and promised to do it again. This is forever true: CNN's Jake Tapper, Alex Marquardt, and Katie Bo Lillis defamed Zachary Young.