The Zuckerberg Conversion

Is the META Reversal of Censorship Policy Genuine or Not?

One of the most startling developments in the period from the latter stages of the 2024 election to the weeks after Trump’s victory was confirmed is the apparently huge shift in the position of the US tech industry.

Vivek Ramaswamy and Elon Musk becoming full on advocates of Trumpism is of course an important part of that change and a key factor which helped secure the election result. It’s said that Musk persuaded many other tech leaders of the economic and pragmatic case for MAGA and for placing tech industry self-interest behind a Trump led economic recovery. The deal between Musk and Trump centres on freeing industry from over regulation, from burdensome and ideological demands, and from State interference and intrusion crippling entrepreneurs and innovators. More broadly it’s about the very spirit of entrepreneurship itself, with men of wildly different backgrounds but similar bullish ambition both determined to restore a swashbuckling sense of innovative confidence to the US economy.

That understanding was always possible, but large parts of the tech industry had become seized by extreme progressive ideas. Tech industry companies were among the most enthusiastic adopters and advocates of all manner of wild leftist progressive assumptions and prejudices. You only have to look at the self inflicted wounds of the gaming industry (10 years and hundreds of millions of dollars spent developing a trans affirming hectoring snooze fest of an end to a popular franchise that was once about fighting dragons being an obvious example) to understand just how many developers, companies and executives in tech were full on woke ideologues basing every commercial decision on increasingly political grounds that turned out to not be shared by the majority of their customers.

Even before Musk had endorsed Trump his capture of Twitter and defence of free speech had seen him turned from beloved tech industry titan, the example that other nerds dreamed of following, into loathed and despised Bad Man to be hissed at and ranted about, so far as the Blue Hair, Blue Vote, Red Communist Underneath branch of Nerdland was concerned. When Musk visited the Bethesda/Netflix launch party for the Fallout TV series it led to hilarious scenes of Nerd Rage as a whole host of fat, greasy, socially maladroit programmers signalled their disapproval of his presence at their event. All of these people a few years earlier would have been wetting themselves with glee to be within touching distance of a Green Tech success story like Musk.

The Zuckerberg Conversion though is a very different beast to the Fall (in progressive eyes) and Rise (as far as everyone else is concerned) of Elon Musk. It’s a transition that has taken much longer, but seems much quicker. Where Elon seemed increasingly and publicly frustrated with woke and progressive positions for years before backing Team Trump (and becoming part of that team), Zuckerberg remained largely tight lipped about ideological questions. He manifested what side he was on through actions that were the exact opposite of those taken when Musk secured control of Twitter.

The most obvious difference is in the area of cancel culture, censorship of conservative, Trump supporting and patriotic voices, and willingness to perform the duties of an outsourced State censor and propagandist. Much of the hatred of Musk in the progressive world derives from his clear and determined opposition to State censorship enforcing woke ideology. Even before he was himself bluntly expressing very non PC views Musk was advocating for free speech and less State interference and ideologically determined interference regarding the individual right to express one’s views.

Zuckerberg by contrast seemed very happy to play the part of a fully signed up State censor. Facebook was one of the key means by which a social media cartel aped the extreme bias and dishonesty of the mainstream media, all under the guidance, patronage and demand of Deep State actors like the FBI, the CIA and (perhaps even before it had been installed) the Biden administration. Facebook made sure that dissenting and conservative voices were crushed. There is absolutely no doubt that various forms of shadow-banning and reach suppression took place even when accounts were not being temporarily or permanently banned and deleted.

Everyone who used Facebook over the last decade became used to seeing posts that took a conservstive stance or a pro Trump stance being removed or suppressed. Every complaint against a conservative voice seemed to be automatically upheld, whilst even the most insulting, violent or threatening comments towards conservatives, Republicans and their causes were seemingly immune to the allegedly non-partisan policies regarding harassment and incitement to violence. Hate speech on Facebook was very much the same as the legal interpretation of it by the most rabidly zealous progressive judges and prosecutors-it was code for conservative speech, traditional values and truthful statements at odds with woke ideology.

As a regular user of Facebook and a person who first started to build a small following for my political commentary on that platform, I received countless examples of the bias and dishonesty of Facebook’s “community standards” and “fact-checking” practices long before Matt Taibbi and other started to report in detail on just how coordinated and pervasive the suppression of non progressive voices had become. The Twitter Files made possible by Musk’s purchase of that platform and by Taibbi’s old-fashioned and decent journalistic integrity revealed a significant flank of the censorship industrial complex, but Facebook under Zuckerberg acted as if all this, like Hunter Biden’s laptop, Ashley Biden’s diary, the obvious fraud irregularities of the 2020 election, the sheer recklessness and authoritarianism of COVID measures, was all part of a delusional Far Right Fever Dream that any responsible organisation was morally obliged to deny.

In the years since of course point after ‘controversial’ point of suppressed and deleted comment, the kind of comment that got accounts banned all the way up to Donald Trump himself, has been backed by evidence and proven to be true. Facebook assiduously hammered any deviation from COVID orthodoxy. Saying masks don’t work could get you banned, an opinion since backed by the gold standard research and collation of all then existing studies on mask efficacy undertaken by the Cochrane Library after the peak of COVID hysteria had passed. Saying on Facebook that a lab leak was the most likely origin of COVID 19 got posts removed, accounts closed, individuals banned and at the very least saw a fact checking warning and associated article (themselves nearly always factually incorrect) placed on top of whatever independent point was being made.

Every major dishonesty of the last decade, every lie about Trump or any Trump policy, was sure to never be removed and never break those ‘community standards’. Conversely any statement thar was not one that might have come straight from the mouth of Anthony Fauci or Robert Reich was treated as a toxic substance from which every American had the right to be shielded. Again and again the truth was suppressed and lies were endorsed, all based on what one side of politics and what a rampantly partisan State running roughshod over constitutional rights had decided was true.

The Zuckerberg Conversion includes a very novel reading of these events. Whilst Zuckerberg’s personal donation of over 300 million dollars to the Biden campaign in 2020 suggests very keen support, and while that funding was used to essentially capture part of the electoral process in ways that made large scale electoral fraud much easier to accomplish, Zuckerberg now insists that Facebook or META’s participation in the censorship industrial complex was coerced. Today, he tells us that his staff were subject to hectoring and bullying phone calls from the Biden administration ordering them to censor opinions, to delete and suppress even obvious satire and humour, to censor and silence even truthful content. Conveniently, then, Zuckerberg starts his revisionist tale of striving manfully AGAINST censorship and bias AFTER Biden’s election, as if he has conveniently forgotten his own donations to Biden and his own keen support for that side of politics.

One of the interesting features of the infamous Time magazine article that boasted about ‘fortifying’ the 2020 election against Trump can be recalled here. In that article the author described, with misplaced pride, what was essentially a vast electoral conspiracy, accidentally confirming most of what Trump voters and conservative observers elsewhere already suspected. Part of the description given cited Mark Zuckerberg as a leading figure in a series of meetings that built a version of an election where the authorities (in both parties and a host of institutions) colluded directly with one party and its associated activists to ensure that only one result could be registered, regardless of how people actually voted. Zuckerberg was described as a host of these conspiratorial gatherings.

It’s at least partly true, given this context, that Zuckerberg’s confession and conversion to becoming a supposed champion of free speech and political balance and objectivity is an attempted means of disguising the actions he took which are now somewhat problematic and would be, were an incoming Trump administration to rigorously investigate and prosecute what happened to steal the 2020 election, potentially the basis of criminal charges. Did Zuckerberg have knowledge of electoral fraud practices? Did he know information his platform was suppressing was true when he suppressed it? Did his since admitted submission to Biden administration pressure after the election constitute a criminal conspiracy in its own right? Did this corporate and State alliance rig an election and also break the 1st amendment by outsourcing State censorship to supposedly independent companies?

If Trump 2nd term law proceeded with the same ruthless dedication to the punishment of enemies shown by the likes of Jack Smith or Judge Merchan than there is plenty in Zuckerberg’s actions and the actions of his company that could be subject to prosecution. Electoral interference is just one of the areas that could be pursued that way. If Republicans behaved the same way as Democrats, the law would not need to be twisted half so much as it was in the lawfare cases against Trump and senior 1st term Trump administration figures in order to go after Zuckerberg. Some consciousness of this vulnerability is no doubt a factor in Zuckerberg’s abrupt change of tune, but it must also be admitted that there has been very little in Trump’s behaviour since winning that would suggest such a vindictive course. For good or ill Trump forgets old battles very quickly and does not possess the depth of ideologically inspired hatred that makes Democrats so personally invested in the most extreme punishments for the mere fact of opposing them or disagreeing with them.

Trump’s vindication comes from winning, from overcoming all the obstacles placed legally and illegally in his path back to the White House that was stolen from him. It’s likely that he doesn’t see much profit in going after 2020 crimes, and intends to let the 2024 election result stand as proof of what was done in 2020 more than he intends to fight a running battle through the courts picking off those who previously opposed him. In this sense, partly based on the differences in sheer vindictiveness and zealotry between globalist progressives and patriotic nationalists, Zuckerberg is safer under his former enemy Trump than he was under his friend Biden, and crucially he’s now aware of that.

We shouldn’t either discount the possibility that the conversion is sincere. 2025 Zuckerberg may indeed be a different man to the one who warned BLM skeptical employees that they would be fired for questioning the BLM propaganda decorating Facebook’s HQ. Some of those who believe Zuckerberg really does mean it now when he talks about masculine values and the right to offend and the need for free speech point to a personal transformation that has occurred over the last few years separate to the national political developments that have unfolded in the same period. Memes amusingly contrasting photos of Zuckerberg in 2020 alongside his appearance today whilst quoting the Terminator franchise regarding updates to Terminators to make them look more human speak to this process. Zuckerberg has indeed transformed his appearance. In the past he looked inhuman. His skin was waxy, he was bug eyed, and he had an awful haircut. These features together made him look more like Data from Star Trek Next Generation than a ‘real boy’. Today his hair has grown, he’s added a short beard, and several years of MMA fighting training has added a bulk to his previously spindly frame. He looks much more human. Is this the outward sign of an inner transformation?

Enthusiasm for MMA fighting would of course give Zuckerberg a new common interest with Trump. And progressive articles and ‘research’ have warned about the ‘dangers’ of masculine sports and fitness regimes as indicators of ‘Far Right’ attitudes. Without agreeing with those absurdities, it is true that woke ideology is a somewhat uncomfortable fit with the world of MMA fandom and with taking up an MMA training regime oneself. Hard exercise and sporting excellence doesn’t work by theory or by objective reality defying feelings. It works by traditional conservative values, by personal effort and responsibility, by a work ethic, by accepting some pain as the price of future reward and meaningful achievement. These traditional masculine lessons incline a person away from the delusional bubble and reality averse obsessions of wokeness, so it’s perfectly possible that adopting this sport as a hobby could have helped transform Zuckerberg’s political perspectives.

Ultimately, it’s the direction of travel that matters. Just as Trump was formerly a Democrat and has drawn into the tent of the 2nd term disillusioned Democrats with common points of agreement like Tulsi Gabbard and of course Elon Musk, if Zuckerberg’s conversion is real he should not be rejected. The proof will be in the actions that follow. But we should acknowledge at least that he is stepping in the right direction. A soulless creep might do the exact same thing, simply transferring loyalty from one side to another out of pure opportunism and from the basis of having no real convictions in the first place. But a man genuinely transformed will also tread the same path.

At the very least Zuckerberg’s commentary on the “brutal” pressure applied to his staff and himself during the Biden term stands as absolute proof of the existence and nature of the censorship industrial complex and its link with progressive Democrat politics. His testimony now confirms that the Biden administration did outsource censorship to private companies acting as arms of the State. It confirms everything Facebook users who experienced that censorship already know. And the removal of biased and dishonest fact checkers is a highly positive indicator that just as his old ideology was expressed through actions Zuckerberg 2.0, the more human Zuckerberg, the Zuckerberg beginning to look, talk and act like a Real Boy, may actually mean what he says and intend to show that too through actions reversing his past crimes.

For me forgiveness in these instances is a pragmatic business conditional on sustained evidence of repentance and change. So long as Zuckerberg acts and presents as a Real Boy, so long can his past dishonesty be forgiven. The conversion should be welcomed so long as it continues to show actions in the right direction. At this stage I am far more concerned about those who row against the populist tide than those who start to row with it. So long as they get some blisters on their hands pulling the oar, we can assume that the converso is welcome.