Mark Zuckerberg turned his back on the media

There was a time when Mark Zuckerberg didn’t consider the mainstream media the enemy. He even let me, a card-carrying heritage media worker, into his home. In April 2018, I went there to hear his plans to do the right thing. Writing was part of how I logged into Facebook for years book. Over the past two years, Zuckerberg’s company has been widely criticized for failing to curb misinformation and hate speech. Now the young founder had a plan to solve it.

Part of the solution, told me it was more content moderation. He intended to hire more people to review posts, even though it cost Facebook a lot of capital. It will also increase efforts to use artificial intelligence to proactively remove harmful content. “It’s no longer enough to give people the tools to say what they want and then let our society flag them and try to respond after the fact,” he said while sitting in his sunroom. “We need to get in there more and take a more active role.” He admitted he was slow to realize how harmful toxic content on Facebook was, but now he’s determined to tackle the problem, even if it could take years. “I think we’re doing the right thing,” he said, “we just should have done it sooner.”

Seven years later, Zuckerberg no longer thinks moderation is the right thing to do. In five minute Reelhe characterized his actions to support it as a regrettable cave-in to the government’s jawbone about Covid and other issues. It announced a move away from content moderation — no more proactive takedowns and curtailment of misinformation and hate speech — and the end of a fact-checking program aimed at debunking falsehoods on its platforms. Fact-checking by trusted sources will be replaced by “community notes” where users provide alternative views on the veracity of posts. This technique is exactly what he told me in 2018, “it’s not enough”. While admitting the changes he is making now will allow “worse things to happen”, he said it was worth developing more “freedom of expression” in 2025.

The policy change was one of several moves that indicate Meta is aligning itself with the new Trump administration, regardless of whether Zuckerberg wants to do so. You’ve heard the litany that has become a meme in itself. Meta promoted chief lobbyist Joel Kaplan, a former GOP operative, to chief global affairs officer; he immediately appeared on Fox News (and only Fox News) touting the new policies. Zuckerberg also announced that Meta will be moving content writing and reviewers from California to Texas “to address concerns that biased employees may be over-censoring content.” He canceled Meta’s DEI program. (Where’s Sheryl Sandberg, proud of Meta’s diversity efforts. Sheryl? Sheryl?) And Meta changed some terms of service specifically to allow users It degrades LGBTQ people.

It’s now been a week since Meta’s return and my first appointment One aspect of Zuckerberg’s speech in particular strikes me: He downplayed the core practice of classic journalism, describing it as better than the unreported observations of countless random people on podcasts, influencers, and platforms. It was hinted at in his Reel when he repeatedly used the term “legacy media” as a pejorative: a force that he saw as promoting censorship and stifling free expression. All this time I thought otherwise!

One sign of a revised version of credibility comes from the shift from fact-checkers to community records. It’s true that the fact-checking process didn’t work well — in part because Zuckerberg didn’t defend malicious critics when they accused them of bias. It’s also reasonable to expect community notes to be a useful signal that a post might be wrong. But the power of rebuttal fails when the participants in the conversation reject the idea that differences of opinion can be resolved by convincing evidence. That’s the main difference that Zuckerberg has eliminated from the fact-checking community he’s implemented. Fact-checking implies that hard facts, obtained through foresight, research, talking to people, and sometimes even believing with your own eyes, can be conclusive. The trick is to recognize authorities who have earned public trust by pursuing the truth. Community notes welcome alternative views, but it’s up to you to decide which is valid. For Canard, the antidote to bad talk is more talk. But if verifiable facts can’t be successfully refuted by an easily debunked flapdoodle, we’re stuck in the sands of suicidal babel.

This is the world that Zuckerberg’s new role model, Donald Trump, is consciously preparing to implement. 60 Minutes reporter Leslie Stahl he once asked Trump why did he insult the journalists who were just doing their job. “Do you know why I do this?” he answered. “I’m doing this to discredit and humiliate you all so that no one will believe you when you write negative stories about me.” Trump in 2021 revealed more intent to profit from an attack on the truth. He said during the rally: “If you say it enough and keep saying it, they will start to believe you.” The bottom line is that if social media promotes enough lies, people will believe them. Especially if previously recognized authorities are discredited and humiliated.