Mark Zuckerberg‘s attempt to distance himself from the political sphere ahead of the upcoming US presidential election has sparked a heated debate over whether the Meta CEO is going too far to appease critics like Donald Trump. In recent weeks, Zuckerberg has made public efforts to show that he is above partisan politics, admitting that since 2016, he had wrongly taken blame for issues that were not facebook and Instagram’s responsibility.
However, election experts, civic integrity groups, and former employees have expressed concerns about Meta rolling back certain election safety initiatives on its social network since 2020. Last year, under pressure from disgruntled investors to cut costs, Zuckerberg embarked on a “year of efficiency” by eliminating thousands of jobs at the platform. A former elections staffer at Meta described this situation as a “low-key national emergency” and questioned whether the company had the capacity to respond effectively to major election threats.
According to sources familiar with Zuckerberg’s thinking, his motivation lies in distancing Meta from politics so that he can focus on his ambitions in artificial intelligence and the metaverse. Since 2020, Meta has been actively reducing political content served by its algorithms. This shift towards efficiency and AI has contributed to an increase in Meta’s share price by 68% this year alone.
Nick Clegg, former UK deputy prime minister and current head of global affairs at Meta, now makes most decisions regarding election policy. However, some argue that Zuckerberg’s attempts to please everyone will ultimately be futile. Katie Harbath, a former policy director who worked on Meta’s elections strategy for ten years stated: “On one hand he’s right… On the other hand if you want an impact it comes with messiness.”
Zuckerberg’s new approach follows years of criticism aimed at him personally as well as at facebook for its societal impact. The platform faced battles both internally and externally over how it should handle elections and candidates’ presence on its site.
While Zuckerberg claims neutrality in this election cycle and aims not to appear politically biased or involved in any way whatsoever; critics argue that this messaging seems designed specifically to placate Trump due to his repeated attacks against Big Tech leaders like Zuckerberg.
Meta has also faced accusations of pulling back from misinformation efforts while reducing transparency. For example allowing ads denying the result of the 2020 election or shutting down CrowdTangle – a tool used by researchers for content analysis – have raised concerns among observers.
A report by media non-profit Free Press found that when it came to backsliding on policies related to midterm elections in 2022 as well as cutting jobs relative company size; only Elon Musk’s X ranked worse than Meta among social media platforms.
Meta spokesperson responded stating these criticisms are unfounded while emphasizing their commitment towards protecting online US elections through their Election Operations Center during November vote along with independent fact-checking programs tackling viral misinformation.
