This is an edition of the newsletter Pulling Weeds With Chris Black, in which the columnist weighs in on hot topics in culture. Sign up here to get it in your inbox every Thursday.
This week, amateur MMA fighter and billionaire CEO of Facebook Mark Zuckerberg teased out his curls, untucked his chain, and fired up the cameras to make an important announcement. Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, will be walking back its long-standing fact-checking program. In an effort to glaze incoming president Donald Trump, they have pledged to allow more speech, rely on users to correct inaccurate posts (LOL), and take a more personalized approach to news and politics. Zuck really let it spray: “It’s time to get back to our roots around free expression,” he said. This comes after an election the Facebook founder referred to as a “cultural tipping point”—and the announcement that Zuck and a handful of other Silicon Valley bigwigs like Jeff Bezos, Tim Cook, and Sam Altman would donate a million each (cash, not bitcoin or stock) to Trump’s inauguration.
The only upside is that none of these dorks are transparent about buying influence from a president, usually done behind closed doors or at the bare minimum through lobbying and other less public channels. “Media literacy” is a term that was thrown around a lot during the election, and the statistics weren’t great. People tend to believe what they read online. With these changes afoot, Meta will be knowingly pumping misinformation, and the only thing we can do is arm our Facebook-loving, fiscally conservative grandparents and aunts who almost went Q with the tools to sift through it all.
If you pay attention, this shift should come as no surprise. Filthy-rich guys will do whatever it takes to protect their interests and push their agenda forward. No matter how often these types show us their true colors, we are always surprised and bewildered. When will we learn? Most people at the top of the Forbes World’s Richest Billionaires List didn’t get there by being nice and fair. To make that kind of money and wield that sort of power and influence, you have to be pot-committed to doing whatever it takes. Peeling off a million bucks to get into the good graces of the most powerful man in the free world is a no-brainer. It’s good for business.
As my entire Twitter feed once again makes hollow threats about leaving social media (none of my European friends threatened to leave WhatsApp), I have to sit back and chuckle. We are hopelessly handcuffed to the feed. For a lot of us, participation in social media affects earning potential. The bad guys have been in charge since the beginning. Being outraged now and leaving Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook proves nothing and will not affect their bottom line. But in times like these, I understand that people are all affected by things differently. Society has never been more “every man for himself,” which I can appreciate in a born-alone, die-alone kind of way. However, under further inspection, helping friends and neighbors or even simply showing empathy feels good—maybe as good as avoiding government regulation.
