Is Mark Zuckerberg right to change content moderation policies and end DEI? That’s really the wrong question. The right question is what Zuckerberg wants for his solicitude. Here are a few items he’d probably like dealt with.
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In 2019, Mark Zuckerberg described the ‘existential’ threat of antitrust to his company. The next year, the Trump administration filed a case against Facebook. That case goes to trial this year.
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After a string of incidents where Facebook violated its pledges to regulators, the Federal Trade Commission has ordered Facebook to stop targeting kids with ads, and is seeking prior approval on the launch of new products. Meta is fighting that.
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Zuckerberg specifically ordered his AI model trained on copyright works downloaded illegally, so he now wants the legalization of mass copyright violations.
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The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau just started regulating Meta’s payments app under anti-fraud and privacy rules. It also bars the misuse of financial information for targeted advertising.
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Congress nearly passed the Kids Online Safety Act, but failed due to lobbying by Meta. Zuckerberg wants to keep that bill dead next Congress.
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Meta is one of the top 20 companies in terms of their use of H-1B visas. He’d like more cheap foreign programmers.
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Meta is seeking to protect its Section 230 liability protections so it can remain free from lawsuits over fostering fake military romance scams and identity theft.
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Zuckerberg said on Joe Rogan he wants help from the U.S. government in protecting his company against foreign governments attempting to regulate his service in their countries.
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Meta dislikes Apple’s 30% app store tax and probably wants the Antitrust Division lawsuit against Apple to continue.
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Zuckerberg is facing a class action fraud suit on inflated metrics for ads, that suit may head to the Supreme Court. He’d like help.
There are more legal problems and opportunities for Meta, but the bottom line is that if you’re an oligarch, the only real threat to your power is a democratic government. So he’s doing whatever he can to neutralize that threat. Is it working? That’s not clear.