Zuckerberg Is Following the More Lucrative Path Elon Set as Predicted, but Should We Trust Him?

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Back in September of last year, I penned a piece concerning the actions of Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta, and his journey into what was being hailed as “libertarianism.” 

I want to post two paragraphs I wrote then, because I believe these two things came true: 

Zuck sees something coming. He’s the CEO of one of the largest social media corporations in the world. He knows when you are sleeping, he knows when you’re awake, he knows when you’ve been bad or good, and he doesn’t care which, just keep posting for goodness’ sake. All those posts probably indicate that Donald Trump is likely going to win the election handily, and he’s preparing his business for a Trump administration that will likely be seeking some retribution. 

[…]

Meta could become another free speech platform similar to that of X as Zuck continues to awaken. We could see Zuck create or facilitate easier information exchanges and compete with Musk in the realm of social media communication. Musk proved that social media can be profitable with incentivization, and nothing incentivizes people to interact quite like money, and more information exchanges means more money for everyone. This would require a lifting of certain content guidelines, making things more open. 

(READ: Let’s See If Zuck Pulls a Musk and Helps Save the World)

It would appear that both of these things are happening… for the most part. No word yet on post monetization on Facebook in the same avenue as X, but regardless, what we have here is a new age for Meta that lends itself more to openness and free speech than before. 

As my colleague Mike Miller reported on Tuesday, Zuckerberg announced his plans to make his platforms more like X, including the big move of getting rid of “fact-checkers” and replacing it with “community notes” just like X. 

“We went to independent, third-party fact-checkers. It has become clear there is too much political bias in what they choose to fact-check because, basically, they get to fact-check whatever they see on the platform,” said Zuck. 

I don’t want to downplay this. It’s a superb development that I predicted would happen… in the event of a Trump win. 

I want to trust Zuckerberg’s sudden turn to the light side, but as I said before, he’s a very shrewd businessman. He had a very strong indication Trump would win, and as such, he began shifting his platform to match a Trump era. The thing is, it didn’t get past me that he made these grand announcements after Trump’s victory. Why didn’t he do it before? 

Because it was too risky before. Now with Trump in office, the chances that American platforms are going to get screwed with is lessened, especially since Trump will likely move to protect Musk and X from foreign governments thanks to their closeness, and Zuck is going to want under that umbrella too. 

Zuck is following Musk’s path because it’s the safest and most lucrative, but he still hasn’t done anything to put himself or his company on the line. In fact, it’s the exact opposite. 

When Musk purchased Twitter and turned it into X, he put a lot on the line. He spent billions transforming it into something that had hurdles galore, including a hostile American government and media. His decision-making won him no friends in the elite class, either. Musk went all-in on X, with his reputation and billions of dollars on the line. 

Zuck is not having to do any of this. Musk paved the way, all Zuck has to do is drive down the road. He’s not having to risk his reputation, as it’s clear the American people prefer this style of social media governance, as even he said in his video announcement. He’s not having to put up billions of dollars to create anything, in fact, he’s going to save a lot of money getting rid of third party fact-checkers, so users can do the fact checking for free.

So no, I don’t trust Zuckerberg. I love this new direction he’s going, to be sure, but I’m not convinced of his sincerity about it. What happens when the pendulum eventually swings back leftward? Will Zuckerberg revert to his pro-censorship model? Probably. He hasn’t proved he wouldn’t. 

If that does happen, and Zuck plants his feet and stands for liberty against a tidal wave of pressure from the media, elitists, and world governments, then I’ll believe him. Until then, this all just feels like a businessman making business decisions. 

As it stands, Zuckerberg is still a Silicon Valley giant, and that comes with an earned level of distrust from the people. To be fair to him, he is doing something that others are either too afraid or too ideologically rigid to do, but while Zuck’s move is more freedom-oriented, he’s yet to be truly tested. If he’s being honest, and he’s turning toward liberty, I’ll be rooting for him, and even behind him when the time of testing comes.

That said, RedState and Facebook have never had the best relationship, which may very well be part of my distrust here. We’ve had to spend a lot of time and effort working with Facebook’s team to keep things civil, and that’s never been fun. If rumors are true, then perhaps things will get a bit less rigid, but sometimes things got a bit… tense. 

Part of the reason we created the VIP Program was because Silicon Valley overlords, including those at Facebook, actively worked against us. Memberships were truly a life-saving thing, especially as the crackdowns got more and more intense. 

We encourage you to join our VIP Program, which will give you articles, videos, and podcasts not available to non-members. You can also use promo code “SAVEAMERICA” for 50% off your subscription price. We hope you join today, as even if Zuck is being honest, we’re not out of the woods yet. 

Time will tell how this goes, but until Meta actually proves itself when the pressure is on, I would advise keeping your guard up.