Ringing in the new year, Facebook/Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg wiped his chin after meeting with Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago during the holidays, and he decided to do some big cool boss stuff.
He picked Joel Kaplan to be Facebook’s global affairs officer, AKA their public policy chief. Kaplan is a complete MAGA clown who clerked for Dead Justice Antonin Scalia, and he is BFFs with Brett Kavanaugh. He’s been at the company for a long time, so he was a hire-from-within, and he’s been critical of Facebook’s “censorship” of conservatives in the past. The timing is obviously special, as Trump prepares to become America’s Stupid Hitler on January 20.
Zuckerberg also announced on Monday that he’s added to Meta’s board Dana White, who brings special UFC knowledge to the LOL fuck it he brings nothing to the table. He is just extremely far up Trump’s ass, so far he got to speak on stage during Trump’s election night victory celebration. He probably met Zuckerberg in the bathroom at Mar-a-Lago during fluffer shift change.
More on both of those guys in a second, but here’s the biggie: Zuckerberg announced this morning that Facebook is getting rid of fact-checkers and replacing them with community notes, like Elon Musk’s Nazi afterschool hangout has, in the name of free speech and stuff!
Zuckerberg explained (video here) that “it’s time to get back to our roots around free expression on Facebook and Instagram.” So they’re going to stop burying liberal content that’s full of facts and correct information and even try to make Threads work as an alternative to Twitter? Haha no. He explained that the “complex system” Facebook built to moderate content just made too many mistakes, and did too many censorships! Also:
The recent elections also feel like a cultural tipping point towards once again prioritizing speech. So we’re gonna get back to our roots and focus on reducing mistakes, simplifying our policies, and restoring free expression on our platforms. More specifically, here’s what we’re going to do.
A cultural tipping point. In an election where a plurality of Americans — not a majority — voted for a convicted felon and adjudicated rapist because some people are profoundly stupid enough to think he’ll lower their grocery prices.
Oh go fuck yourself.
Read Zuckerberg’s full babbling screed if you’d like. He explained that Facebook tried and tried to do good fact-checking without “becoming the arbiters of truth.” He whined, “But the fact checkers have just been too politically biased.”
You know, because any fact-checking that consistently says Donald Trump, Republicans and their media apparatus are full-time lying dogshit motherfuckers is UNFAAAAAAIR and BIASSSSSSSS, and not an indicator that Donald Trump, Republicans and their media apparatus are full-time lying dogshit motherfuckers.
There’s a bunch of coded language that sounds good, about how they’re going to “get rid of a bunch of restrictions on topics like immigration and gender that are just out of touch with mainstream discourse.” Except then you realize what he likely means is that they’re going to make it easier for people to be abusive to other people on the platforms, because after all, how can MAGA even use the internet if they’re not allowed to be fascist, misogynistic Nazis with abusive anger issues? The tell is when Zuck says, “What started as a movement to be more inclusive has increasingly been used to shut down opinions and shut out people with different ideas. And it’s gone too far.”
Gotcha.
He says they’re axing the system that’s resulted in — speaking from personal and Wonkette experience here — an absurd uptick in posts being taken down for no apparent reason, simply because they somehow tripped up Facebook’s fucked up AI. So that’s good, we guess.
Oh, and he says it’s OK to talk about politics on Facebook again! Yay! Just in time for us to all praise Dear Leader, we bet!
Oh and WAIT WHAT LOL?
Fifth, we’re going to move our trust and safety and content moderation teams out of California, and our US based content review is going to be based in Texas. As we work to promote free expression, I think that will help us build trust to do this work in places where there is less concern about the bias of our teams. Finally, we’re going to work with President Trump to push back on governments around the world. They’re going after American companies and pushing to censor more.
Hahahahahahahahahahahahaha, that is so humiliating and embarrassing. We are actually in awe that Zuckerberg is prostrating himself that much to get Trump to shower him with blessings. The moderators will be in RED-BLOODED AMERICAN TEXAS! Working with Donald Trump on CENSORSHIP!
You betcha!
He finished by bitching and whining about Joe Biden’s censorship regime, because apparently he’s just full MAGA trash now. Maybe he is upset about Hunter Biden’s laptop or something.
So this is all cool and not unsurprising in the least. As this news report lays out, Zuckerberg has been rolling over and playing dead trying to make Republicans and Trump like him and Facebook for years. This capitulation is just the last humiliating straw. But he’s been like this for years.
Along with Zuckerberg’s announcement, Joel Kaplan went on “Fox & Friends” this morning to joy-jizz about Facebook’s new commitment to free speech, because we guess he wanted to make extra sure Father Trump saw it. And he just gushed and gushed and gushed and gushed everywhere about Donald Trump:
“And we’ve got a real opportunity now,” Kaplan continued. “We’ve got a new administration and a new president coming in who are big defenders of free expression, and that makes a difference. One of the things we’ve experienced is that when you have a U.S. president, an administration that’s pushing for censorship, it just makes it open season for other governments around the world that don’t even have the protections of the First Amendment to really put pressure on US companies. We’re going to work with President Trump to push back on that kind of thing around the world.”
That was just a sampling of the gushing. If you read the transcript, you see he said that over and over again, like some kind of MAGA automaton.
So to sum up, Zuckerberg is doing free speech, Zuckerberg is doing community notes, Zuckerberg is moving to Texas. It’s almost like he’s jealous Elon gets to snuggle with Daddy and he’s tearfully protesting that it’s his turn. Maybe he’s trying to show Trump that he’s a better son than Elon, that he can bend over backward for Trump without being a stage-four clinger like Elon.
Dunno, don’t care.
As we’ve watched all these billionaires who own media and tech companies go on pilgrimage to Mar-a-Lago to suck the holy Mario Kart cock, we’ve heard a lot of people talking about how the first rule of Authoritarian Fight Club is don’t obey in advance, yadda yadda. And that’s all true and right.
But we’d suggest it’s the wrong framing for these oligarchs, because it turns out these oligarchs actually don’t care what kind of system we live in. If anything, democracy might be a problem for many of them. So they’re not doing this because they genuinely like Trump or suddenly think he’s smart. Most of them probably continue to believe Trump is an absolute fucking buffoon, one they can manipulate. (Much like Putin and other authoritarian world leaders.)
Each one of them donating a million to the inauguration, it’s like they agreed in their group text that’s what they’re doing, like it was the spending limit for this year’s Secret Santa. They’re checking a box, so that when they want something from the shitting orange buffoon, he won’t find that they’ve failed to pay their bribe.
They could be right and this could work for them, personally, everyone else literally be damned. We feel like it rhymes with history too.
But then there are the individual efforts to curry special favor, and hoo boy, Mark Zuckerberg is desperate to take the lead. Surrender monkey, indeed.
By the way, ever since Dana White was announced for the Meta board, Meta employees have been making fun of it and speaking out against it in Facebook’s internal comms channels, and Meta’s HR people have been deleting the criticisms.
New era of free speech, baby!
Do free speech now, to the extent that we allow it, it’s your OPEN THREAD.
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I love these trees on 5th Avenue alongside Central Park. The snow made the curves stand out.
https://substack.com/@ziggywiggy/note/c-84937426?utm_source=notes-share-action&r=2knfuc
Also, too, Zuck's new guidelines promise that it's now okay to say:
1) Being gay is unnatural and mentally ill.
2) Being trans is unnatural and mentally ill.
3) Trans people are self-mutilating deluded villains who want to invade your bathrooms.
4) Chinese immigrants and tourists were part of a deliberate conspiracy to spread COVID and kill Americans.
What is still not okay? Holocaust denial and anti-semitism. Let's not assume, though, that the fact that Zuck is not gay, trans or ethnically Chinese is somehow relevant to the new liberties, or the fact that he is Jewish is relevant to the consistent restrictions.
This isn't about joining the fascists in the hope of benefiting from their regime. This is all about a freer America and a better tomorrow. Mark Zuckerberg: altruist and freedom lover.