Four years ago, some of California’s most influential tech companies decided then-President Trump was such a threat to democracy that they banned him from posting on social media platforms.
On January 7, 2021, the day after Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said, “We want the president to continue using our service during this time.” “We believe the risks are too great,” he wrote on his platform. A violent attempt to maintain his power.
Now, as President Trump prepares to take back the White House, the attitude of some of those same tech leaders, including Zuckerberg, is strikingly different. They met privately with him, touted the business opportunities they would see under the incoming administration, announced policies that seemed intended to placate him, and made his return with a huge donation to his inaugural fund. is raising an impressive amount of funds.
On Tuesday, a full four years to the day after his post announcing Trump’s suspension from Facebook, Zuckerberg posted a video announcing the company’s efforts to curb dangerous, illegal and misleading content. He argued that the “complicated system” leading to “excessive censorship”. President Trump’s debate will be significantly scaled back.
Zuckerberg called the recent election a “cultural tipping point” and said Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, would “eliminate fact checkers” and instead challenge misleading posts. He said that he would rely on users who advocate the following. The company plans to significantly ease content restrictions on some of President Trump’s favorite political topics, such as immigration and gender, and gradually increase the amount of political content its algorithms direct toward users, he added. Ta.
It also plans to move the rest of its security and content moderation teams from California to Texas, which Zuckerberg said will provide a “less biased” environment and allow him to work directly with President Trump to “attack American businesses and businesses.” “We can push back against governments around the world who are trying to do so.” They are trying to further censorship. ”
Industry experts say the change is part of a broader shift in public political stances by big tech executives. This shift began long before President Trump’s victory in November, but has escalated significantly since then, and is greater than the perfunctory bow of pragmatic business leaders that accompanied the change in administration. The government decides this every four years.
Some defend the change. In an interview with The Associated Press last month, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff said the reason for this is that the incoming Trump administration has shown more interest in industry concerns and expertise than the Biden administration. said.
“I think a lot of people realize that there are a lot of great people like Elon Musk in the technology industry and the business community,” Benioff said. “If we can leverage the power and expertise of America’s best people to get the most out of America, that’s a great vision.”
Some say the change reflects fiscal calculations in line with long-established libertarian tendencies in the tech world. Experts say President Trump’s penchant for deregulation and disdain for content moderation, which he claims skews toward conservatives, will be good for those at the bottom.
Experts say tech executives have both an opportunity to relieve themselves of the costly responsibility of cleaning up their own platforms and a valid excuse to do so under the guise of free speech. He sees this as an opportunity to gain the ideals he has often cited to ridicule moderation. .
“As we saw throughout the election, it’s about recognizing that Trump’s power is enormous and that he is definitely here to stay for the next four years. [and] “The MAGA movement is the largest social movement in the United States,” said Ramesh Srinivasan, director of the Center for Global Digital Culture at the University of California. “When it comes to Meta and these big companies, their interest is in maintaining if not increasing their reputation and profitability, and they will do whatever is easiest to achieve that. I try to do it.”
That attitude is not surprising and fiscally savvy, he and other experts say, but it’s also worrying — especially as President Trump uses the Justice Department as a political weapon against his enemies. Given the promise to do so, and the willingness of technology company leaders to counter that threat with cash and other means, they said they take solace in the White House.
Sarah T. Roberts, co-founder and dean of the UCLA Center for Critical Internet Research, said President Trump’s technology donation to his inaugural fund was “an extremely vulgar demonstration” and that “we will not be able to succeed in the marketplace over the next four years.” That would require currying the president’s favor.”
The big question is that the decision of Mehta, It must not become. Roberts, author of “Behind the Screen: Content Moderation in the Shadows of Social Media,” said there were no safeguards in place.
Technology industry leaders know this, she says, but don’t seem to care.
“They knew from their own internal investigations that no action or effort to intervene would be harmful, and they made a very calculated decision to ignore their own evidence and dismantle those teams. I am. [and] They sell their jobs and their workers,” Roberts said.
Rob Larca, a business professor at Tulane University, agrees that the long-standing strategy of big tech leaders to reshape American capitalism to their advantage by increasing their influence in Washington is working. He said he was doing it.
“They’re involved in politics in ways that go beyond money,” he says. “They’re interested in power.”
money and power
Mr. Zuckerberg, Mr. experts said they control platforms and services that play a big role in shaping debate and political debate.
Government regulations have tightened in recent years as countries grapple with the threats such platforms pose to consumers and democracy, including the spread of misinformation and hate speech, making it important to check their overwhelming power. This is a great checkpoint.
Countries and the European Union are imposing content moderation and child protection obligations, issuing takedown orders for content deemed illegal or dangerous, and imposing monopolies that require companies to be dissolved or fined for anti-competitive business practices. There is an increasing number of cases in which bans and other lawsuits are being filed.
Amazon, Apple, Google, Meta and X (formerly Twitter) have faced antitrust lawsuits and reviews in recent years, some of which began under the first Trump administration. No one responded to requests for comment, but they have denied wrongdoing in court.
They and their chief executives have all pledged to contribute to President Trump’s inaugural fund, which will cover the cost of galas, parades and dinners.
Mehta and Apple’s Cook announced they would donate $1 million to Trump’s foundation. Google announced it would donate $1 million and the inauguration would be streamed on YouTube. Amazon, led by billionaire Jeff Bezos, has pledged to donate $1 million in cash and $1 million in in-kind donations by streaming the inauguration on Amazon Video.
Musk, the world’s richest man, has spent more than $250 million with Trump, the most for a single donor in the 2024 election cycle, including campaigning through two separate political action committees. He spent it supporting the re-election of Republican members of both the House and Senate. Financial statements show.
Musk has been in Trump’s inner circle ever since, and Trump appointed him to head the new Office of Government Efficiency.
Bill Baer, who served as head of the Justice Department’s antitrust division in the Obama administration, said tech company leaders “are feeling goodwill,” given President Trump’s emphasis on loyalty. “It’s not weird what they’re doing,” he added.
“They want to make sure that if a list of enemies is being created, they’re not on it,” Baer said.
It’s also unclear how the Trump administration will handle investigations into tech platforms and their operations, Baer said. Trump and Vice President-elect J.D. Vance have both “expressed some concerns about high-tech platforms,” and “there appears to be a split among Republicans in Congress,” he said.
But Baer’s concerns stem from President Trump’s promise to “control law enforcement in a way that protects our friends and goes after our enemies, including those currently facing antitrust lawsuits.” It’s about protecting. Not only is this the basis for being a monopolist, but the same goes for people who are being investigated for such actions. ”
If Trump were to do so, Baer said, tech leaders’ willingness to put money into his inaugural fund and otherwise try to appease him would create legal problems, especially with antitrust laws against them. He said legal issues would arise if the case ended abruptly or easily.
That’s “something the public should be concerned about,” Baer said. “Our entire economy is built on the idea that competition leads to innovation, price competition, and improved quality.”
“Everyone wants to be my friend.”
At a news conference in December, Trump said he was receiving a “much less hostile” response from technology company leaders.
“The first term, everyone was fighting me. This term, everyone wants to be my friend,” Trump said.
When asked about Meta’s announcement on Tuesday, which follows the appointment of Dana White, CEO of Ultimate Fighting Championship and ardent Trump supporter, to Meta’s board of directors, Trump said: He said only that Zuckerberg “has come a long way.”
The remarks echoed claims by Trump and other Republicans that big tech companies are steeped in liberal bias and that their algorithms and content moderation are designed to help Democrats and hurt Republicans. It was something to do.
Experts say there’s plenty of evidence that bias is a myth, especially in all the recent actions of tech’s most powerful leaders.
But regardless of the personal politics of these leaders, they all “came to the same conclusion” that President Trump’s ego had to be attacked, Roberts said.
“If that’s the price of doing business, I think they’re prepared to do it while selling out and putting a lot of other people at risk.”
The fact that Trump is surrounding himself with tech leaders echoes the era of venture capitalist Peter Thiel, said Tulane’s Larca, author of The Venture Alchemists: How Big Tech Turned Profit Into Power. He said this reflects a significant change in Silicon Valley’s attitude toward politics since 2016. donated $1.25 million to Trump’s first campaign, raising eyebrows in the industry.
Mr. Larca points out the extent to which Silicon Valley types have since infiltrated government, and that Mr. Vance, in particular, has deep ties to Mr. Thiel, but that the American public underestimates the extent to which they serve the public’s interests. Larca said they need to know better whether they intend to permanently change American governance to improve the country’s governance. own free market interests.
He said Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency and his plan to work together under Project 2025, which fires career civil servants for Trump supporters, are a perfect example.
“What they’re advocating here is a much more Silicon Valley way of thinking, which is to reject everything old and traditional and embrace the new, the new, the innovative, the technological. It means you have to prioritize things,” says Larca. Said. “Are we willing to take the risk based on the people coming in? As a layperson, I’m not sure about that.”
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