One of the fiercest opponents to ongoing efforts of regulating big tech is Mark Zuckerberg. In leaked audio of an internal Facebook Q&A session, when the topic of Elizabeth Warren’s plans of breaking up big tech came up, Zuckerberg vowed to “go to the mat” and fight it. This might sound benign upon first listen, but it is the core of what Mark Zuckerberg has come to represent in Silicon Valley’s faux appeal to progressive values. Instead of perceiving the long-lasting damage it’s done to global democracy as deeply abhorrent and working to fix it, Facebook would rather continue to hide behind free speech platitudes and the faint promise of betterment with nothing concrete to bear it out.
On Thursday, in an effort to make his values more clearly known, Zuckerberg delivered an address on free expression at Georgetown University in Washington DC. What had become quickly apparent, is that this was nothing more than a PR stunt for Facebook to promote the idea that Zuckerberg hadn’t completely lost the script while promoting the unconditional growth of his quasi-monopolistic social media empire. To start, the following Q&A had only featured questions submitted by students beforehand, and therefore pertains in small terms to the contents of the actual address–so now that free speech was tossed out the window, it was time for the clown show to start.
This whole nothing-burger of a speech went through several big themes of what inspired the creation of Facebook from its earliest days in Harvard — somehow retconning its origin from a poorly-conceived dating website to a response to the Iraq war — well through the beginning of what would redefine communication infrastructure for the modern age. Zuckerberg talked about how the platform elevated real-world gathering circles by giving them a place and a voice on his platform. “Most progress happens in our lives. It’s the church group, the Air Force moms. This is one of Facebook’s greatest hits. Check! No more gatekeepers. Check! Amazing expansion of voice! Check!” Zuckerberg said. Though optimistic about what his platform has done, Zuckerberg seems to overlook the fact that it is precisely this unfettered access to amplification methods that has allowed…
