By Dustin Rowles | News | January 14, 2025 |
I was tempted to headline this one “Heartbreaking: The Worst People You Know Just Made a Great Point about Mark Zuckerberg,” but I’m not keen to turn this into a regular feature. It’s just that Mark Zuckerberg is cozying up to the incoming administration, and it’s becoming clearer why. Spoiler alert: it has little to do with free speech or any profound change of heart.
Mark Zuckerberg needs the incoming administration to make his problems disappear. Among the many issues facing Meta is a 2020 antitrust lawsuit filed during the first Trump administration, which heads to trial this spring. Section 230 —- the law shielding platforms from liability for user-generated content —- is under attack from both MAGA loyalists and liberals, and Meta desperately wants it to remain intact. Additionally, Meta’s AI ambitions rely on access to copyrighted works, there’s a class-action lawsuit against Meta making its way to the Supreme Court, and the company heavily depends on H1-B visas, a program often criticized by immigration hardliners.
Given this landscape, Zuckerberg’s pivot toward MAGA makes sense. He’s betting that by cozying up to Trump’s team, he can skirt some of these threats.
But even the MAGA faithful see through it.
As we’ve written, Meta recently announced changes to its content policies, private Messenger themes celebrating trans and nonbinary pride have disappeared, and changes have been rolled out that directly contradict Meta’s previously stated values. Meta has also dismantled its DEI program and gutted its trust and safety teams.
And yet, for all this pandering, nobody’s buying it. Prominent MAGA figures, including Dave Portnoy and Laura Loomer, have mocked Zuckerberg’s efforts to rebrand. Steven Bannon summed it up perfectly on his podcast: “Zuckerberg can’t be trusted — at all.” He added, “The only thing Zuckerberg and these guys… can be counted on [for] is looking after their own self-interest. That’s it.”
Zuckerberg’s play for survival isn’t fooling anyone. His moves aren’t about free speech, innovation, or any of the other lofty ideals he might claim to champion. They’re about power, profit, and staying out of trouble. And for all the goodwill he’s sacrificed, there’s no guarantee the strategy will even work.