In the weeks leading up to Mark Zuckerberg’s sweeping changes to Meta’s content moderation policies, the billionaire technocrat had plenty of time to talk to Donald Trump, but apparently no chance to run the decision past his oversight board.
Michael McConnell, a Stanford law professor on Meta’s oversight board, told NPR’s All Things Considered Friday that his advisory group had not even been consulted on the decision to remove content filters for some bigoted and dangerous language targeting women, ethnic and religious minorities, and people who identify as LGBTQ+.
“This actually came as a surprise to us. We did not know that they were going to be revising that standard,” McConnell said.
This is particularly troubling, considering that the oversight board’s primary function is to review cases on appeal from Meta users to see whether the company’s decisions are in line with its values—something that seems to be rapidly changing.
While Zuckerberg may not have floated Meta’s rightward policy shift past those involved in adjudicating those actual policies, he did apparently have plenty of time to talk to Trump.
Senator Markwayne Mullin told right-wing commentator Benny Johnson on an episode of The Benny Show Thursday that Zuckerberg had begun speaking regularly with the president-elect.
“Mark met with President Trump the day before he announced that they were going to change the way they do censorship, essentially,” Mullin said.
“The big announcement that he made the other day, President Trump, and spoke about that, and Mark had been down to see the president several times already,” the Oklahoma Republican added.
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