Quoted in "Mark Zuckerberg’s Political Evolution, From Apologies to No More Apologies/Meta’s chief executive has stepped away from his mea culpa approach to issues on his platforms and has told people that he wants to return to his original thinking on free speech" (NYT).
Mr. Zuckerberg has long been a pragmatist who has gone where the political winds have blown. He has flip-flopped on how much political content should be shown to Facebook and Instagram users, previously saying social networks should be about fun, relatable content from family and friends but then on Tuesday saying Meta would show more personalized political content....
Mr. Zuckerberg was never comfortable with the involvement of outside fact-checkers, academics or researchers in his company, one of the executives said. He now sees many of the steps taken after the 2016 election as a mistake... two executives said.... Those who have known Mr. Zuckerberg for decades describe him as a natural libertarian, who enjoyed reading books extolling free expression and the free market system after he dropped out of Harvard to start Facebook in 2004....
I'd like to think that the idea of freedom of speech won out in the marketplace of ideas, but I can understand how the speech controllers gravitate toward the idea that Zuckerberg was always a right-winger and he's just regressing after faking aspirations to higher values.
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59 comments:
“…he's just regressing after faking aspirations to higher values.”
I’m old enough to remember when “free speech” was among the highest values.
Has Zuck yet posted a video of himself Trump dancing? You know he wants to.
Who knows where Zuck's political leanings lie, but in the political press anything that does not explicitly kowtow to the Democratic/leftist agenda is always "extreme right-wing".
Zuckerberg is best characterized as an opportunist and warlord.
He's an admitted thief of the Facebook concept, he pushed intrustive cross-site trackers such as "Beacon," he followed the monopolists playbook (i.e., the Microsoft model) to the letter, he distracted from the Jan 6 organization on his platforms by attacking the small weakling but potential future competitor Parler, and he funded the election monkey business with "Zuck bucks."
"Libertarian" here means "Don't mess with my preferred types of organized crime."
Tech consultant looking for another gig. "Natural libertarian" my ass.
Mark Zuckerberg runs a large corporation and large corporations generally follow the previailing political and cultural norms. Nothing inherently wrong with that. It can be argued that he has a fudiciary duty to his stockholders to do what is best for his company.
That much power is in the hands of one person who has shown himself to not be particularly trustworthy....
This is where I differ violently with the "speech controllers" described by Althouse:
I'd like to think that the idea of freedom of speech won out in the marketplace of ideas, but I can understand how the speech controllers gravitate toward the idea that Zuckerberg was always a right-winger and he's just regressing after faking aspirations to higher values.
There are no higher civic values than upholding our Constitutional rights.
Yes. It and the rest of the Bill of Rights were the virtual definition of Liberal values. You will never hear a "progressive" say they will "defend your right to say" anything at all. Their entire ideology is easily summed up as "we disagree; shut up."
How is Zuckerberg’s previous claims that Meta wasn’t censoring a mea culpa?
Thank you, Progressives! We'll accept those terms. Thanks to your incompetence (and strict adhesion to the tenet Steve describes), to be pro-American is now "right wing," to be pro-Free Speech is now "right wing," to be pro-woman is now "right wing," to be pro-excellence is now "right wing," to be pro-secure elections is now "right wing," to be pro-Constitutional Republic is now "right wing."
Minitrue the movie
It's a mobius strip, Leland: Zuck is vowing to no longer do that thing that Zuck previously said he wasn't doing at all.
It was said correctly when it was written, “wherever the political winds have blown”. Zuck’s a survivor on rough seas. Any port in a storm will suit that weasel and his crew. Boomers and trolls keep his ship afloat. Eventually, they’ll all be deep sixed.
They make it sound like Zuckerberg may have preferences, but he doesn’t have principles. “He goes where the winds blow him.” Which points to free speech winning in the marketplace of ideas.
This is a milder version of the Daily Beast headline. There's nothing normal or reasonable about, in this case, cooperating with Donald Trump. There has to be an alternate explanation other than Trump is correct about the censorship being pushed by the Democrats.
This shows how Mark Zuckerberg is feeling that he should change how he appears.
Zuckerberg's Actual feeling, is that people should give More Money to Zuckerberg
Novels like "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" influenced a lot of us in our thinking. TANSTAFL!
I'd like to think that the idea of freedom of speech won out in the marketplace of ideas …
Zuckerberg is amoral and even sociopathic, but he knows which way the wind is blowing.
I can't help thinking about Lucifer and the football, though.
Mighty fine brownnosing by a paid flack.
Where the constitution is interpreted as to guarantee you, and you alone a 50% ROI every year.
The left is authoritarian, the right is libertarian, the far-left is totalitarian, the far-right is anarchist, the left-right nexus is leftist.
Liberalism is a philosophy of divergence. Progressivism is a philosophy of monotonic change. Conservativism is a philosophy of moderation (e.g. pro-Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness) . Principles matter.
Men, women, and our Posterity are from Earth. Feminists are from Venus. Masculinists are from Mars. Social progressives are from Uranus.
Mark Zuckerberg is best understood as being for Mark Zuckerberg to the exclusion of anything or anyone else.
I used to argue that there were three axes, and libertarianism was orthogonal to the whole Left-Right scale. But the problem with libertarianism is that it doesn't have the machtlust to actually rule, and is therefore irrelevant in the long run. Those who do lust for power gain the great wealth that libertarianism makes possible, then simply buy the government as a means of control to pull the ladder up behind them, and try to ensure that their people are in control forever.
Communism has possibly worse problems, in that the level of state power required to stamp out markets is so huge, that when, not if, a sociopath like Stalin gains control, and as a matter of statistics, sociopaths are 1% of the human population across cultures, well, we saw the results in China and The Soviet Union.
On balance, it seems like the right is preferable, but the free market types plan to harness AI to make free speech impossible, to shut down narratives that bring the rule of a tiny cabal into question, and turn the entire globe into an Open Society cult. People like Adam Schiff already use the kinds of techniques that cults use to try to maximize his power. Crooked elections have been codified in California, for example, under the absurd rubric of "protecting democracy." My money right now is on the "free market ->-> cult" people, but the communists have military advantages that it's difficult for free market economies to match.
ESAD, lefties.
...Or Lucy Van Pelt and the football. Zuckerborg is Lucy. We're Charlie Brown.
Elon Musk's name doesn't appear anywhere in that article. The omission is glaring since it appears that Musk is showing tech billionaires how to have fun.
I've got no research to back this up, but it seems like tech billionaires may have started out as "natural libertarians". They might not really understand people, so are drawn to tech. They have an idea that is catching on, so they wouldn't want any interference.
As the company grows, they still don't really get people, so follow the pop cultural trends to stay out of trouble. When the company gets big enough, regulation doesn't seem so bad because it protects the company.
"I'd like to think that the idea of freedom of speech won out in the marketplace of ideas, but I can understand how the speech controllers gravitate toward the idea that Zuckerberg was always a right-winger and he's just regressing after faking aspirations to higher values."
Subtle phrasing here. I'd like to think--but of course we all know better. The marketplace of ideas--or Trump winning thanks to the deplorables? Zuck "regressing" to support for free speech--LOL. Higher values--as in, "experts" controlling everything in the service of their ideology. But it's good to see Musk, Zuck et al. converging on the position Althouse has taken all along.
Lucifer Van Pelt in this case.
"Those are my principles, gentlemen. If you don't like them...Well, I've got others."
An interesting take from X:
Cruadin
@cruadin
Wow, these sudden revelations about how it was the U.S government, under the Biden Regime, pushing for censorship of contrary opinions.
Kaplan even acknowledges that they were being pushed by the Biden Regime to censor humor and satire, knowing it was humor and satire, under the banner of “misinformation.”
[My emphasis]
Dat muddafuggin' Zukabug...he don't give a shit.
lol
Zukabug caved to the humorless scolds without a fight. What about the people who were harmed by that?
The tree remembers what the axe forgets.
Retconning is the new gaslighting.
I don't see Zuck as ever having been right-wing, and I don't view his earlier position as a fraud or a facade. Many of those who actually vote Libertarian are neo-liberals (though not exactly in the sense the left has given that word). They oppose social conservatives but aren't limited government or laissez-faire libertarians. They are attracted by fashionable progressive ideas but aren't wedded to them. So, no Zucky wasn't a completely committed progressive, but he wasn't ever right-wing.
“In the beginning of a change the patriot is a scarce man, and brave, and hated and scorned. When his cause succeeds, the timid join him, for then it costs nothing to be a patriot.” - Mark Twain
Did Zukabug take the Vax? He warned his staff in private away from the Vax. He censored those trying to do the same for the public at large.
When I see my FB friends now commenting on the lack of fact-checking, I just roll my eyes and ask myself "Why is anyone trying to believe what they read on FB?" A little skepticism goes a long way on FB/X/etc.
Even after playing ball, they made him stand up and forced him to offer an impromptu personal apology for something he had no responsibility for. There is no way to censor hard enough to satisfy these people. I think Zuck figured that out.
(thumbs up emoji)
To be fair, back in 2016 through 2020, I don't think anybody realized how bad things had gotten in DC with regard to the FBI, the IC, the NIH, the GOPe, including Donald Trump. We all still trusted people and institutions we now know can't be trusted at all.
“I want to be left alone to make billions”: If that isn’t the definition of a libertarian, I don’t know what is.
How many facts would a fact checker chuck if a fact checker would chuck facts? A fact checker would chuck as many facts as would help the Republicans.
“2016 through 2020, don’t think anyone realized how bad things had gotten in DC”
I agree; you don’t think
Jaq (formerly TiV)
"TANSTAFL"
It's the tiniest slip ups that expose you, comrade!
It is, of course, TANSTAAFL -- but then there aren't articles in Russian, are there, so your mistake is easy to understand.
LOL. I am more in favor of the actual interests of the United States of America than I am in Ukraine's race war with Russia, so that makes me Russian. Whatever. Ukrainian race hatred of the Russians is just the handle that the US uses to move the pawn. The US and Russia have far more common interests than the US and Ukraine. If Ukraine wasn't on Russia's border, the US would not give a flying f- about the whole country.
"there aren't articles in Russian"
Nor in Ukrainian, that's why the correct English translation is "The Ukraine." like "The Netherlands."
Althouse writes, "... but I can understand how the speech controllers gravitate toward the idea that Zuckerberg was always a right-winger and he's just regressing after faking aspirations to higher values."
To the speech controllers the highest value remains loving Big Brother.
Jaq,
Probably it wasn't clear that I was really making fun of Dr Weevil, not you; It was a parody of his reasoning.
In passing, I sure don't get your point about the translation of country names, though - - but I will strongly object to the notion that there is one "the" correct translation (as if there were some Supra linguistic authority sitting over all languages and giving authoritative opinions as to which translations were correct)
@Jaq: Libertarians maintain rigid and functional lifestyles through unspoken assumptions. As stiff-backed, hard-working, truth-telling, self-sufficient farmers, miners, builders, teachers, etc., they simply manage themselves and do it very well. Their sense of "liberty" is extremely disciplined and self-sustaining, and it does not nor cannot extend into dysfunction.
If liberty shifts to anything-goes hedonism, playboys and Bohemians take over and degenerate to self-ending nothings in a few generations. See San Francisco. See Hugh Heffner and Hollywood. See all things Woke. The Playboys begat the Hippies, the Hippies begat the Yuppies, and the Yuppies begat the Woke. The Woke then replicated "Logan's Run" via self-sterilization, video game "achievements," Instagram selfies, careers-over-children, and functional suicide.
True story: I read that 10%+ of D.C.'s power players can be diagnosed as psychopaths, while on Wall St. it's only 5%. Power centers suck in the psychos. East Asia long ago gave up on the notion of left and right -- they accept that the psychos will gain power and keep it, so they've had tradition-bound one-party governments under different names for millenia (i.e., China, Japan, Korea).
@Bob Boyd: See the life story of J. Edgar Hoover. He was long dead but his methods were not forgotten. He was the model for all who followed. See how they managed the JFK case and records too.
Upon his election in 2008, the weak, passive, naive, bowing, and idealistic statist Obama handed over the reins to his cold-blooded "friends" in the Deep State. This became supremely obvious with the anti-right abuses at the IRS, the sudden "discovery" that the EPA controlled all waterways, and that four words "affirmatively furthering fair housing" could be turned into hundreds of pages of rules and regulations.
Similarly naive Trump correctly sensed an issue with his Obama birther stuff and "drain the swamp" rhetoric, but he was totally wrong about the cause. The Deep State then set about trying to kill the beast who could not be killed and revealed themselves.
TDS and stress revealed that the tame political pigs were actually vicious wild boars:
https://a-z-animals.com/animals/comparison/wild-boar-vs-pig/
Progressing with liberal license to cancel actual and perceived "burdens"... uh, burdens. A wicked solution joyfully entertained by persons left of center in the governance spectrum.
That Mark Twain quote could not be more spot on.
I think it's interesting that people expect that a tech company embedded in NoCal hiring kids from San Francisco and surrounding areas and almost exclusively Berkeley, Stanford, or Ivy League youngsters wouldn't inevitably become Red Guards like virtually every other tech company in that same place.
Zuckerberg was ill-equipped to fight the tide as Facebook was exploding. They needed bodies so they got them, but also got the minds as well.
Maybe he didn't care or thought it was cool to be in the thrall of Obama, etc.
He doesn't strike me as a particularly political animal. Opportunist? Yes. Libertarian? Maybe, as that seemed to be a prerequisite for building that type of company in the Silicon Valley wild west. At some point, he took the road well traveled, and the Peter Thiels went the other way.
I thought that you might be pulling my leg, I know it's too easy. I suppose you are correct about the translation, but the fact is that that is how it has been translated to English since time immemorial until some ultranationalists took power there. I don't like ultranationalists, so I don't respect their wishes in the use of language.
Jaq,
Indeed, the correct response isn't "That's the *correct* way to spell that foreign country or city name from a different language in our language"; it's "That's the way we write it in our language and that's what we will keep doing."
I know the Finns -- or at least the Karens among them -- want the rest of the world to call their country Suomi, but that's probably not going to happen.
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