Aug 27, 2024

Mark Zuckerberg's Goal is to Be Neutral in Not Being Neutral

Is Meta going MAGA or GAGA?

“My goal is to be neutral and not play a role one way or another—or to even appear to be playing a role.”

That quote is from a letter Mark Zuckerberg sent to Jim Jordan, the Republican congressman who is the House Judiciary Committee Chairman. He is also, of course, a close ally of the current Republican presidential nominee and former president, Donald Trump. And so when you say "my goal is to be neutral" and then literally send a message that you know will be public and you know will be publicly used by a party to take a political victory lap...

There are probably better ways to remain "neutral" is all I'm saying.

Beyond Jordan hailing Zuckerberg's comments as a “big win for free speech", Trump has of course also weighed in on Truth Social, his own social network:

Zuckerberg admits that the White House pushed to SUPPRESS HUNTER BIDEN LAPTOP STORY (& much more!). IN OTHER WORDS, THE 2020 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION WAS RIGGED.

Yes, that's the former president saying that Mark Zuckerberg is confirming that the 2020 election was rigged. Very NEUTRAL. Not playing a role one way or another...

Of course, I don't actually believe Zuckerberg cares most about being neutral. In an ideal state, maybe. But what he must care about far more right now is protecting Meta, his $1T American company. Jordan had been investigating the company, and their Facebook product in particular for actions taken during the pandemic and yes, the last presidential election. And Zuckerberg would like Jordan (and by extension, Trump) to know that, "my bad, we're all good here now."

Okay, he didn't say the above quote, but he may as well have:

In a letter to House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R., Ohio) that touched on a series of controversies, Zuckerberg wrote that senior Biden administration officials, including from the White House, had “repeatedly pressured our teams for months to censor certain COVID-19 content, including humor and satire, and expressed a lot of frustration with our teams when we didn’t agree.”

At the time, Facebook’s publicly stated goal was to push millions of people toward Covid-19 vaccines. In his letter, Zuckerberg didn’t indicate whether he had changed his mind about that goal or whether he simply felt that the Biden administration had gone too far. The Wall Street Journal reported in 2023 about debates between the company and the White House over Covid-related content, including humorous or satirical posts.

Zuckerberg said that he believed the pressure from the administration “was wrong, and I regret that we were not more outspoken about it.” He said that the company had “made some choices that, with the benefit of hindsight and new information, we wouldn’t make today,” and that “I feel strongly that we should not compromise our content standards due to pressure from any administration in either direction—and we’re ready to push back if something like this happens again.”

Look, whatever your stance is here, I think we can all agree that the pandemic was a truly insane moment in history. Literally historically chaotic. It's nice that in hindsight, Zuckerberg thinks that Meta made mistakes in the heat of the moment. That's also easy to say right now. Guess what? If another situation like that ever happens – god forbid – other such choices will have to be made.

"We're ready to push back if something like this happens again" Bullshit. We are not ready. How could you even claim to be ready for that situation?

Meanwhile, throwing the Biden administration under the bus is... a choice. A yes, political one and also an easy one now that it's officially a lame-duck administration. What a brave stance. Should a political administration be attempting to pressure a private company? I mean, that is quite the loaded question. I think most peoples' viewpoint, myself included, would be "no" but that's in a vacuum. Again, we were in the midst of a worldwide pandemic that killed millions of people. Millions. It's not an excuse, it was literally our reality.

But hey, whatever you got to say to remain "neutral".

Zuckerberg also made clear he didn’t plan to repeat heavy spending on election access. The billionaire Facebook founder and his wife, Priscilla Chan, donated more than $400 million to nonprofits to help conduct elections during the 2020 coronavirus pandemic.

While many localities said the money was a lifeline helping them register voters, set up socially-distanced voting booths and provide equipment to sort mail-in ballots, among other uses, Republicans said that the money, which they dubbed “Zuckerbucks,” unfairly benefited Democratic areas. More than two dozen mostly Republican-leaning states have now banned, limited or regulated the use of private funds to manage elections, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

“Despite the analysis I’ve seen showing otherwise, I know that some people believe this work benefited one party over the other,” Zuckerberg wrote. “My goal is to be neutral and not play a role one way or another—or to even appear to be playing a role. So I don’t plan on making a similar contribution this cycle.”

I don't really have a problem with this other than the fact that Zuckerberg is essentially saying that they did the right thing, but he cares more about perception. But whatever, it's their money.

In his letter to Jordan, Zuckerberg said that Meta “shouldn’t have demoted” a New York Post story about President Biden’s son Hunter Biden ahead of the 2020 election. The Post said at the time that its reporting was based on email exchanges between the two Bidens that were provided by allies of President Donald Trump, who in turn said they received them from a computer-repair person who found them on a laptop. At the time, dozens of former intelligence officials signed a letter that then-candidate Biden cited in a presidential debate saying that the release of the emails had “all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.”

“It’s since been made clear that the reporting was not Russian disinformation, and in retrospect, we shouldn’t have demoted the story,” Zuckerberg wrote.

Again, the issue here, right now in 2024, is Zuckerberg bringing this up in a letter in which he states his desire to be neutral but obviously knows this will be weaponized, politically.

But none of this should be a surprise. A month ago, when it was reported that Zuckerberg had been calling Trump "a lot" (per Trump, not the reporting), and flattering him (again, per Trump), saying something like:

"He called me after the event and he said, ‘That was really amazing, it was really brave.’ And he actually announced he’s not going to support a Democrat, because he can’t, because he respected me for what I did that day."

At the time, I wrote the following:

First, we've already been over this specific topic, but it remains pathetic. The former President of the United States being shot at and getting up was not "badass", it was terrifying. You should be scared for your country, not pumping up this sad moment in our democracy up as you would the build-up to some UFC match.

Second, if you really said something like that well, I don't even know what to say to that. That's just not something a normal person would say who wasn't aiming to kiss the most ass possible. So hopefully Trump just made that up.

We now have a pattern of behavior from Zuckerberg. He's not the only one pandering in such ways – far from it. And I obviously understand the desire to protect his company, which Trump and his allies have fixated on in strange ways in the past. But if the goal is truly to remain "neutral", others at the company should be doing this legwork to build/repair bridges. It may not be as effective, but it would be more, well, neutral.