Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s announcement that he is ending professional fact-checking on Facebook and Instagram has reverberated across the political and tech worlds.
While Tuesday’s news marked Zuckerberg’s biggest splash, it was the latest in a series of moves in recent months to position himself and the social media giant for the incoming Trump administration.
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Zuckerberg was once a supporter of a handful of progressive causes — he had co-founded an immigration reform group that fought against mass deportations — and repeatedly met with Barack Obama during his presidency.
But he began dropping hints last summer that he was preparing to politically lean in on supporting Donald Trump. The first came in July, when Zuckerberg said that Trump raising his fist after an assassination attempt was “one of the most badass things I’ve ever seen in my life.” Zuckerberg at the time tempered the praise, though, saying he would not endorse a presidential candidate.
Also that month, Meta removed special restrictions it imposed on Trump’s Facebook and Instagram accounts after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol — essentially giving Trump a fresh start on the platforms after it had suspended and then reinstated him.
In August, Zuckerberg attacked the Biden administration’s response to Covid-19 misinformation, alleging that the government had pressured the company to “censor” content. Later in the month, after Trump released a book of photographs in which he said Zuckerberg “will spend the rest of his life in prison” if he does “anything illegal” to influence the presidential election, Meta declined to comment.
After the election, Zuckerberg posted well-wishes to Trump. Last month, Meta said it had donated $1 million to Trump’s inaugural fund. And last week, Zuckerberg elevated a longtime Republican insider, Joel Kaplan, to be Meta’s head of global policy, replacing Nick Clegg, a former British deputy prime minister whose record was less conservative than Kaplan’s.
On Monday, Meta announced new members of its board of directors, including Dana White, the CEO of Ultimate Fighting Championship and a longtime friend of Trump’s.
Zuckerberg is hardly alone in corporate America in shifting policy to match political winds, but his pivot is unique because of the dominant position of Meta in how Americans communicate online.
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