The cynicism of the video posted yesterday by Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Meta (owner of Facebook, Instagram and Whatsapp), is overwhelming, although not surprising. In a few minutes he complained about traditional media and governments, such as the European Parliament, which are, according to him, promoting alleged censorship. He celebrated Donald Trump as a champion of freedom of expression (despite his habit of suing anyone who dares to question him) and announced the cutting of all funding to fact-checking teams. In the process he positioned himself as a defender of freedom of expression, when his erratic, opaque and authoritarian decisions have been responsible for altering public debate around the world for the last eight years. There is no “mea culpa”, just another billionaire who kneels before the whims of Trumpism without regard for how it will affect other countries.
It’s worth studying several of Zuckerberg’s announcements to understand why they’re problematic. The most notable is that he will stop funding fact-checkers and replace them with a tool called “community notes.” Popularized on X, these allow users to propose warnings when content promotes falsehoods. If the proposal gets enough votes, it is posted on the page. Sounds good, but there are two problems with this move. First, because this is a way to abandon support for independent and rigorous journalism. What Zuckerberg doesn’t count on is that he’s going to save a ton of money while condemning respected organizations to bankruptcy. Second, these community notes are often built with links to pages of independent and rigorous journalism. That is, if they continue to stifle the ability to do fact-checking, who will be there to do it properly? Users are expected to do so, without paying them at all, and with all the problems that entails.
At another point, Zuckerberg says he will move the content moderation centers from California. “Our content review in the United States will be based in Texas,” explained the director of Meta, because “this will allow us to build confidence in doing this work in places where there is less concern about the biases of our teams.” Why does California produce bias? Is it because it is a Democratic state? And if that is the case, why choose Texas, which has been Republican for decades and voted overwhelmingly for Trump? These are rhetorical questions, because what Zuckerberg wants is to win over the president-elect, and there is no better way than to set up shop in Texas. The hypocrisy is evident.
Finally, Zuckerberg said that he will bring political content back to the networks. Something we welcome, because at the time we criticized that this was done to restrict public debate. It is curious, however, that in the same video in which he denounces censorship, he admits that his decision to limit that content for years was because “people were stressed.” These are his exact words. That is the new champion of freedom of expression. There are no principles, but a political weather vane. It is necessary to resist with clearer regulations.
