I think we are all now clear why Nick Clegg left Meta last week. It will be interesting to see who else now departs the Meta ship. And who doesn’t. Those who remain will have no hiding place. They will have become part of the Trump project.
To quote the Daily Mail (not something I do often these days)
Zuckerberg cites the last US Presidential election as a justification for his volte face. No it is not. It’s a choice he has made. A very bad choice. Human rights, a respect for the truth, do not come and go with elections. Or they shouldn’t. It is why we have entrenched human rights in international and national laws.
Zuckerberg says Meta’s efforts to supress lies, misinformation and harmful content have led to too many mistakes. Making mistakes of any kind is regrettable, to be minimised to the greatest extent possible, but if done in good faith to protect people and enhance their safety it is at least honourable. Better to err on the side of caution.
Making mistakes which are likely to endanger people is emphatically not honourable if they have arisen from a conscious choice not to try to minimise them.
Nobody should be applauded for handing a bigger megaphone to the mob. Zuckerberg needs to go back to school and learn a bit of history. In Europe we have been here before. The rise of populism is something to be feared and fought against not promoted.
Archie Bunker moves in
Zuckerberg chose now to attack the Biden Administration? After the event, wrapped in the comfort and safety of Trump’s bullying bosom? Disgusting. Captain Hindsight’s hollow heroics. A performative stunt he will live to regret.
Zuckerberg even managed to weave in a reference to China in among his criticisms of Europeans who are promoting “censorship”. No. European Governments and institutions are promoting decency, and a concern for people’s safety, specifically including children’s. Adopting Archie Bunker as your mascot is going in exactly the wrong direction.
Zuckerberg said he was going to embrace strong encryption even though he acknowledged this would mean a lot of bad stuff they previously would have found would now not be, including child sexual abuse material. Then he said he was going to stop apologising for Meta’s past mistakes. The last notable time I can recall he apologised was when he appeared before Congress in April 2018. He turned to the protestors in the public gallery, many of whom held up pictures of their children, children who had been injured through the actions or inactions of Meta’s platforms. He said sorry. Is that apology now retracted? Cancelled.
Zuckerberg’s u-turn is said to be limited to the USA. We shall see.
The Three Horsemen of the Virtual Apocalypse are riding high. Worrying times. That the internet could be reduced to this…….. Shame. Shame.
Desiderata 