BACKLASH TO THE ACCOUNTABILITY OF THE BIDEN ERA
Now that the time is right – what Zuckerberg called a “tipping point” in attitudes toward speech online – the Meta CEO can finally speak his mind on the matter, clearly still smarting from the negative coverage in the wake of Trump’s first election.
On Tuesday, he put that tone firmly on the record. “After Trump first got elected in 2016,” he said, “the legacy media wrote non-stop about how misinformation was a threat to democracy.”
What we’re seeing in Silicon Valley, above all else, is a backlash to the accountability of the Biden era. A big part of that, as evidenced by his “legacy media” jibe, is Zuckerberg’s belief – shared by many in the tech business as though it were gospel – that editors and publishers sent reporters out like attack dogs to take down Meta’s business so that old media could somehow return to its glory years.
It is ludicrous, of course, but it has given many tech leaders the excuse they need to treat bad press as disingenuous attacks rather than an examination of their actions and character. In Silicon Valley, every act of journalism is deemed a “hit piece”.
That press coverage led to uncomfortable and consequential government action. First were congressional hearings, which amounted to public billionaire floggings, particularly for Zuckerberg. Then came the regulations, most notably in Europe, with tighter controls and harsher punishments.
Closer to home, antitrust matters have loomed, with regulators slowing down deals Meta has made or wanting to unwind them altogether.
By throwing in the right’s favourite imprecise buzzwords – Censorship! Secret courts! Political bias! Legacy media! – Zuckerberg is pandering to Trump and his circle and giving the impression that he, to use the right’s cringeworthy lexicon, has been “red-pilled”.
In truth, Zuckerberg’s values don’t seem to have shifted at all: He wants the press to go away, regulators to get off his back, and the excuse to give up on safety measures he never believed in in the first place.
