Because HBO’s John Oliver waited until last week to kick off the 2025 season of Last Week Tonight, he is still catching up on all the news he missed. On Sunday, Oliver turned his attention to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s decision to ditch its fact-checking partners, calling the decision “self-serving bullshit.” Oliver also tried to dismiss Big Tech censorship concerns, claiming Facebook and Twitter failed to censor the New York Post’s 2020 story about Hunter Biden’s laptop despite them doing precisely that.
After playing a clip of Zuckerberg with Joe Rogan defending his decision, Oliver ranted:
And look, I'm not saying Facebook was doing a perfect job of moderating content until now, we've criticized them multiple times before on this show. I'm also not saying they even could've done perfectly. It's been said that ‘Content moderation at scale is impossible to do well.’ But the decision to both abandon fact-checkers, and turn off systems they'd previously claimed made the platform safer does feel like it's about to make that site a whole lot worse. And the self-depiction of Zuckerberg, rap name Lil Broccoli, as someone simply embracing his company's ‘Roots around free expression’ is self-serving bullshit.
Later, Oliver was trying to downplay the idea that the Post was an example of conservatives being censored as he sarcastically declared, “Hunter Biden's fucking laptop, a story that Big Tech successfully censored, which is why you've never heard about it.”
After recapping the ordeal, Oliver made sure to first remind people that there was nothing to see, “Now, it eventually came out that files from the laptop were legit, but also, that nothing on it revealed illegal or unethical behavior by Joe Biden.”
Moving back to the tech companies, Oliver continued:
So, was initially suppressing the laptop story a fuckup by these companies? In hindsight, yeah. Was the story itself particularly revelatory or important? Not really. Did Facebook's actions prevent people from finding out about it before the election? Again, not really; even during the period Facebook was limiting its spread, the story got 54 million views on its site. So, if this was an attempt at censorship, it was successful in limiting the audience to the same number of people who watched the fucking Friends finale.
The fact that Twitter and Facebook failed to stop the Post story does not mean they didn’t try. We don’t apply that standard to anything else. If a terrorist attack fails, that doesn’t mean the terrorist behind it isn’t a terrorist.
Here is a transcript for the February 23 show:
HBO Last Week Tonight with John Oliver
2/23/2025
11:18 PM ET
JOHN OLIVER: Zuckerberg is framing all this as merely responding to a broader cultural shift, something he outlined, naturally, on Joe Rogan.
MARK ZUCKERBERG: What we do is, we try to build a platform that gives people a voice. But I think that there's this wholesale generational shift in who are the people who are being listened to. [Jump cut] I think it's just, like, a wholesale shift in saying, "We just want different people who we actually trust."
JOE ROGAN: Right.
ZUCKERBERG: Who are actually going to like, tell us the truth, and like, and not give us, like, the bullshit opinions that you're supposed to say, but like, the type of stuff that I would actually – like, when I'm sitting with -- in my living room with my friends, like the stuff that we know is true.
OLIVER: Is there anything more off putting than a guy worth hundreds of billions, trying to be a relatable everyman? "You know how it is, chilling in the living room with the bros, cracking a six pack of Ace of Spades magnums, kicking back on your diamond encrusted sofa and turning on the big screen TV, which in my house, is a hollow box where I pay the cast of The Office to reenact my favorite scenes. Y'know, just relatable, everyday stuff, guys."
And look, I'm not saying Facebook was doing a perfect job of moderating content until now, we've criticized them multiple times before on this show. I'm also not saying they even could've done perfectly. It's been said that "Content moderation at scale is impossible to do well." But the decision to both abandon fact-checkers, and turn off systems they'd previously claimed made the platform safer does feel like it's about to make that site a whole lot worse. And the self-depiction of Zuckerberg, rap name Lil Broccoli, as someone simply embracing his company's "Roots around free expression" is self-serving bullshit.
…
OLIVER: Right. Hunter Biden's fucking laptop, a story that Big Tech successfully censored, which is why you've never heard about it. And I'm afraid it is worth taking a second to remind you of the details in this story. Because while people's minds may immediately swing to "Russian hoax" or "Damning evidence of Biden corruption," the truth is, it was neither.
Very briefly: Back in 2020, while Trump was president, social media sites got a warning from the FBI to look out for hack-and-leak operations before the election. Then, in October, the New York Post ran a story based on files from a laptop they claimed belonged to Hunter Biden, which had been given to them by Steve Bannon and Rudy Giuliani. Facebook and Twitter were wary of the story. Twitter briefly didn't allow people to post links to it and Facebook allowed the story to be seen and shared, but limited the article's reach, only to remove that restriction soon after.
Now, it eventually came out that files from the laptop were legit, but also, that nothing on it revealed illegal or unethical behavior by Joe Biden.
So, was initially suppressing the laptop story a fuckup by these companies? In hindsight, yeah. Was the story itself particularly revelatory or important? Not really; Did Facebook's actions prevent people from finding out about it before the election? Again, not really, even during the period Facebook was limiting its spread, the story got 54 million views on its site. So, if this was an attempt at censorship, it was successful in limiting the audience to the same number of people who watched the fucking Friends finale.