Newsweek, January 2025
Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg announced major changes to the company’s policies on Tuesday, in the latest sign of its embrace of President-elect Donald Trump. In a video posted on Facebook, Zuckerberg said the election felt like a “cultural tipping point” as he announced Meta would end its fact-checking program and replace it with a community-driven model like that seen on Elon Musk‘s X (formerly Twitter), as well as lift restrictions on certain topics such as immigration and gender identity. “There’s a real opportunity here, with President Trump coming into office, with his commitment to free expression, for us to get back to those values and really provide space for people to have the discourse and debate they want to have,” Joel Kaplan, a Republican who was recently appointed Meta’s chief global affairs officer, said Tuesday on Fox & Friends.
The move is the latest sign that Zuckerberg, once a champion of liberal causes, is following Musk’s playbook and seeking to shift Meta’s platforms—which include Facebook and Instagram—to the right, as well as currying favor with the incoming Trump administration. Musk bought X in 2022 and transformed it into a social media megaphone for conservative voices. The world’s richest man also spent an estimated $250 million supporting Trump’s campaign and now appears to be wielding significant influence over the president-elect. In his announcement, Zuckerberg accused governments and “legacy media” of pushing for more censorship. It comes after he wrote a letter to the House Judiciary Committee in August, saying the Biden administration had pressured the company to censor content during the COVID-19 pandemic.
