Jakub Bolzycki | Noor Photos | Getty Images
Mark Zuckerberg’s announced this week Yuan Shifting its moderate policies toward allowing more “free expression” is widely seen as the company’s latest effort to appease President-elect Donald Trump.
Meta has taken more public steps to reconcile with Trump than any of its Silicon Valley peers since he won the election in November.
It follows four years of highly contentious relations between the two men during Trump’s first term, which culminated in Facebook (like other social media companies) banning Trump from its platform.
As recently as March, Trump use Talking about Meta’s CEO, his favorite nickname is “Zuckerschmuck” declare Facebook is the “enemy of the people.”
Meta now positions itself as Key players in artificial intelligenceZuckerberg recognized that he needed White House support as his company built data centers and pursued policies that could achieve its lofty ambitions, according to people familiar with the company’s plans. this matter.
“As powerful as Facebook is, it still had to give in to Trump,” said Brian Boland, a former Facebook vice president who left Facebook in 2020.
Meta declined to comment for this article.
In Tuesday’s announcement, Zuckerberg says Meta will end third-party fact-checking, lift restrictions on topics like immigration and gender identity, and bring political content back to where users came from. Zuckerberg sees sweeping policy changes as key to stabilizing Meta’s content moderation agency. explain “It got to the point where there were too many mistakes and too much scrutiny.”
The policy change is Meta’s latest shift in strategy to work with Trump and Republicans since Election Day.
one day ago, Metadata publication Dana White, Trump’s old friend and UFC CEO, is about to join the company’s board of directors.
Last week, Meta announced replace Nick Clegg, the company’s president of global affairs, and Joel Kaplan, the company’s former vice president of policy. Craig has previously served in British politics with the Lib Dems, including as deputy prime minister, while Caplan served as deputy chief of staff at the White House under former President George W. Bush.
Kaplan, who joined Meta in 2011 when it was still known as Facebook, has longstanding ties to the Republican Party and served as a law clerk to the late conservative Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. December, Kaplan release Photo of him on Facebook during a meeting with Vice President-elect J.D. Vance and Trump access to the New York Stock Exchange.
Joel Kaplan, Vice President of Global Policy at Facebook, April 17, 2018.
Neil Carson | PA Images | Getty Images
Many Meta employees Criticize policy changes Internally, some say the company is shirking its responsibility to create a secure platform. Current and former employees also expressed concern that marginalized communities may face more online abuse as the new policy takes effect in the coming weeks.
Despite backlash from employees, people familiar with the company’s thinking say Meta would prefer to 21,000 employees laid offBy 2022 and 2023, it will account for nearly a quarter of its total workforce.
These cuts affect much of Meta Civic Integrity, Trust and Safety Team. Former employees say the Civic Integrity Group is the closest thing the company has to a white-collar union, with members willing to oppose certain policy decisions. Since the layoffs, Zuckerberg has faced less friction as he makes broad policy changes, people familiar with the matter said.
Zuckerberg’s overtures to Trump began months before the election.
After the first assassination attempt on Trump in July, Zuckerberg called Trump’s photo raise fist Blood was streaming down his face. “It was one of the worst things I’ve ever seen in my life.”
One month later, Zuckerberg wrote a letter Allegations to the House Judiciary Committee that the Biden administration pressured Mehta’s team to review certain Covid-19 content.
“I think the government pressure is misplaced and I regret that we haven’t been more vocal about this,” he wrote.
After Trump was elected president, Zuckerberg joined several other tech executives visited The president-elect’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida. Yuan Ye Donate $1 million Trump’s first fund.
Friday, yuan disclosed to its employees In a memo obtained by CNBC, the company plans to close several internal programs related to diversity and inclusion in the recruiting process, another move that would benefit Trump.
The day before, the company released some details of its new relaxed content moderation guidelines publish Published by news site The Intercept, it shows the offensive rhetoric now allowed under Mehta’s new policy, including lines like “Immigration is better than vomiting” and “I bet Jorge is the guy who stole my backpack after track practice today.” immigration” and other remarks. They are all thieves. “
Recalibrating for Trump
Zuckerberg, who has been dragged to Washington eight times over the past two administrations to testify before congressional committees, wants to be seen as someone who can work with Trump and Republicans, people familiar with the matter said.
While Meta’s content policy update came as a surprise to many employees and fact-checking partners, a small group of senior executives are making plans in the wake of the U.S. election results. By New Year’s Day, leadership began planning to publicly announce its policy changes, people familiar with the matter said.
Katie Harbath, former policy director at Facebook and CEO of technology consulting firm Anchor Change, said Meta typically undergoes significant “recalibration” after the U.S. election. Habas said that when a country undergoes a change of power, Meta adjusts its policies based on the political situation to best suit its business and reputational needs.
“By 2028, they will be readjusting again,” she said.
For example, after the 2016 election and Trump’s first victory, Zuckerberg toured the country, meeting people in states he had never visited before. He published a 6,000-word article declaration Emphasizing the need for Facebook to build more communities.
The social media company faced heavy criticism for fake news and Russian election interference on its platform after the 2016 election.
Meta took a tougher stance on Covid-19 content after the 2020 election and during the height of the pandemic, a policy executive explain In 2021, “the amount of COVID-19 vaccine misinformation that violated our policies was excessive by our standards.” Those efforts may have appeased the Biden administration but have drawn the ire of Republicans.
Habas said Meta reacted to the moment again.
“There’s no business risk in Silicon Valley by becoming more right-leaning,” Habas said.
While Trump has not made any specific policy recommendations for his second administration, Mehta has a lot at stake.
The White House could enact looser AI regulations than the EU. explain Strict restrictions have led to the company not releasing some of its products More advanced AI technology. Like other tech giants, Meta need Larger data centers and cutting-edge computer chips to help train and run their advanced artificial intelligence models.
“There will be business benefits from a Republican win because they have traditionally had less regulation,” Habas said.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg reacts while testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on online child sexual exploitation at the U.S. Capitol on January 31, 2024 in Washington, United States.
Evelyn Hochstein | Reuters
Mehta is not the only one trying to curry favor with Trump. But the extreme steps the company is taking reflect a certain level of hostility that Trump has expressed over the years.
Trump accused Meta of censorship and expressed displeasure with the company’s two-year suspension of his Facebook and Instagram accounts following the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.
In July 2024, Trump released On the Society of Truth He intends to “go after election fraudsters at an unprecedented level and they will go to prison for long periods of time,” adding “Zach Buck, watch out!” Trump reiterated this statement In his book “Saving America,” Zuckerberg plotted against him during the 2020 election and said the Meta CEO would “spend the rest of his life in prison” if it happened again.
Meta is spending $14 million annually to provide personal security for Zuckerberg and his family, according to the company’s 2024 proxy statement. The company analyzes any threats or perceived threats against its chief executive as part of its security measures, people familiar with the matter said. These threats are classified, analyzed and profiled by Meta’s numerous security teams.
In the wake of Trump’s comments, Meta’s security team analyzed how Trump used the Justice Department and national intelligence agencies to target Zuckerberg and the company’s efforts to defend its CEO against a sitting president, the person said, speaking on condition of anonymity. At what cost.
Mehta’s efforts to placate the incoming president also pose risks.
On Tuesday, after Zuckerberg announced the new speech policy, many users including former senior executive Bolland told fans through Meta’s Threads service that they would quit Facebook.
“Last post before deletion,” Bolan wrote in the post.
Before his Threads followers could see the post, Meta’s content moderation system removed it, citing online security concerns.
In an interview with CNBC, Bolan said that he couldn’t help laughing when he saw this situation.
“It’s very ironic,” Bolan said.
—CNBC’s Salvador Rodriguez contributed to this report.
