There is no shortage of speculation as to how much Elon Musk and his companies will benefit financially from his enthusiastic embrace of President-elect Donald Trump. Yet I believe that it is Mark Zuckerberg, Mr. Musk’s lower-key, more politically fluid tech-billionaire rival, who should be crowned Silicon Valley’s wiliest operator in the halls of Washington.
That’s just wonderful for Meta, Mr. Zuckerberg’s aging social media empire. It is bad news for the future of technology and the truth.
Mr. Zuckerberg burst on the national political scene a little over a decade ago to promote and fund left-leaning issues he cared about, such as drug legalization and reducing mass incarceration. When his platforms were accused of spreading misinformation that may have helped elect Mr. Trump, Mr. Zuckerberg vowed to grapple with the problem. He kicked Mr. Trump off Facebook and Instagram for two years in light of the storming of the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
So perhaps it isn’t a total coincidence that President Biden’s administration took some positions highly favorable to Mr. Zuckerberg’s social media goliath. Congress has failed to pass any meaningful regulation to curb the behavior of the social media giants, despite increasing evidence of their harms. And Mr. Zuckerberg’s sharp critiques of China, followed up by more discreet lobbying by Meta, helped persuade Congress and Mr. Biden to ban the video-sharing app TikTok, whose parent company is Chinese — and also just happens to be Meta’s most innovative and threatening rival.
Now, having kissed the ring of incoming President Trump — in the form of a dinner, the appointment of a professional fighting executive and Trump ally to the board of his company and a $1 million donation by Meta to Mr. Trump’s inaugural fund — Mr. Zuckerberg has finally come full circle. On Tuesday, he announced that he is dialing back the fact-checking operations designed to combat misinformation on Meta’s platforms — the kind of fake news accused of potentially helping to elect Mr. Trump the first time. This represents a huge win for right-wing groups that have long argued that efforts to combat misinformation are forms of censorship and a middle finger to regulators. It is a devastating blow to the truth.
“We’re going to work with President Trump to push back on governments around the world going after American companies and pushing to censor more,” Mr. Zuckerberg said.
While some Meta executives say his change of heart was a long time coming, you’ve got to admit that the timing of Mr. Zuckerberg’s big public gesture is mighty convenient. The Federal Trade Commission’s lawsuit charging that Meta acquired Instagram and WhatsApp to maintain a social media monopoly goes to trial in April. The F.T.C. chair, Lina Khan, a Biden-era thorn in Big Tech’s side who will be replaced next month, has already said she hopes the president-elect won’t let Meta off the hook.
By swinging both ways, Mr. Zuckerberg seems to be pulling off the impressive feat of using Democrats to take out a major rival while using Republicans to slash the enormous costs of trying to protect the truth — all without suffering major regulatory incursions from either thus far. Not surprisingly, Meta stock is near its high.
To make his victory even sweeter, Mr. Zuckerberg paid just peanuts for his win. Unlike Mr. Musk, who, along with the entities he controls, poured $277 million into Mr. Trump’s electoral campaign, campaigned alongside him and has been frequently staying in a cottage at Mar-a-Lago since the election, Meta donated only that measly $1 million to the inaugural fund and Mr. Zuckerberg flew to Mar-a-Lago for that post-election dinner.
Total victory is not assured. This week, the Supreme Court is hearing an emergency appeal to the TikTok ban. Even if TikTok wins in court, it has been significantly weakened by the fight, with many important influencers diversifying their content to include Meta’s Instagram and Google’s YouTube in anticipation of a ban, potentially taking their audiences along with them.
Even with Mr. Trump’s support, Mr. Zuckerberg’s fight against international laws requiring content moderation could be difficult. The European Union has passed laws requiring content moderation that carry extremely high fines for noncompliance: up to 6 percent of annual revenues.
All this winning masks a loss for technological progress. Mr. Zuckerberg is not winning by innovating. He is winning by playing politics. That speaks to the fact that his company, whose primary platforms are now more than 15 years old, has been limping from one failed product to another in search of a source for future growth.
As Facebook and Instagram got big and the cost of complying with regulations around the globe rose, Mr. Zuckerberg placed a $46 billion dollar bet on the Metaverse, a clunky virtual-reality world that required users to wear headsets and interact with avatars that initially lacked legs. Surprise: No one wanted to hang out there.
Next, Mr. Zuckerberg pivoted to artificial intelligence. Despite spending tens of billions in a costly race, Meta’s attempt to distinguish itself by building A.I. avatars for people to interact with on social media is thus far looking like an embarrassing flop.
In the meantime, Meta’s core products — Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp — are increasingly filled with A.I.-generated garbage, spam and frauds. Removing content moderation and fact-checking is likely to make them worse, forcing all of us who use Meta’s platforms to fight harder to find truthful, reliable information amid the deluge of dreck.
This is what it looks like when a mature business runs out of ideas and instead seeks to continue its dominance through money and political power. It is terrible for our information environment and our democracy.
It’s also a sign that Meta is vulnerable to competitors offering the next big idea. And I am very much looking forward to the future beyond it.
The post This Is What It Looks Like When Mark Zuckerberg Runs Out of Ideas appeared first on New York Times.
