Mark Zuckerberg continues his return campaign With the incoming Trump administration. After visiting Mar-a-Lago to dine with the incoming president, and donating $1 million to Trump’s inaugural fund along with other tech leaders (how much money does an inauguration actually cost? ), Zuckerberg has now replaced the head of Meta’s political arm, the company’s most prominent Republican. Semaphore First informed On the news.
Joel Kaplan most recently served as deputy head of global policy under Nick Clegg, who joined Meta (then Facebook) in 2018 after serving as UK Deputy Prime Minister under David Cameron . Clegg has been like that obedient attack dog For years Zuckerberg has served as a voice to defend the company from journalists and politicians on controversial issues. 2022 according to the book “An ugly truth,” Clegg advised the leadership at Meta that regulation was inevitable, so it would be best for the company to step in and help create light-hearted regulations rather than more stringent laws. He also advocated whatabout-ism, or sidestepping criticism about meta by drawing attention to China – something that Zuckerberg did in order to ban TikTok.
“I’m grateful for everything you’ve done for Meta and the world over the past seven years,” Zuckerberg said of Clegg in a statement. Semaphore“I have learned a lot from working with you and our entire team is better for the opportunity. You have had a significant impact on shaping the voice and values of Meta around the world, as well as advancing our vision for AI and the metaverse. You have also formed a strong team to take this work forward. “I am excited for Joel to step into this role given his deep experience and insight leading our policy work for many years.”
Whatever Zuckerberg really feels about Trump, he is ultimately a capitalist and will do whatever is in the best interests of his company. Clegg criticized Trump’s de facto vice president Elon Musk in a recent interview BBC That Clegg has also defended content moderation as necessary to protect viewers from harmful content, in sharp contrast to Musk’s mission to eliminate any and all censorship.
Kaplan, meanwhile, served as White House deputy chief of staff under George W. Bush earlier in his career and reportedly debated META internally. Against restrictions on political speech Potentially disproportionately harming conservatives.
It makes sense for him to be appointed META’s new policy leader as Trump, entering his second and final term, is more aggressive and ready to attack than in his first term. When Trump last took office, he had no experience in politics and was later distracted by the pandemic. This time will be different, his incoming team is reportedly already preparing a flurry of executive actions To be implemented within hours of assuming charge.
Meta has reinstated all of Trump’s accounts after he banned them following the January 6 Capitol riot, and Zuckerberg even went so far as to do so this summer. Sorry for censoring the content during the COVID-19 pandemic and vowed not to impose pressure again (millions of people have died (Ignoring COVID-19 measures). In general, Meta has deprioritised news content AI-generated engagement slope He is more light-hearted by nature. Zuckerberg has thrown up his hands and said he doesn’t want to deal with divisive content.
Trump has responded to these steps in a variety of ways, Saying In October he said he liked Zuckerberg “much better now”.
Of course, Zuckerberg isn’t the only leader who feuded with Trump during his first administration and has now changed his tune. Leaders including Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Google CEO Sundar Pichai and Apple CEO Tim Cook have also made it pilgrimage to kiss the ring Having previously been vocally attacked by Trump on various issues. After all, these leaders do not want to fall victim to Trump’s wrath again and will do whatever it takes to protect their empire. Especially now that Musk, who has been critical of Silicon Valley leaders and runs his own competing companies, listens to Trump and can influence policy, or put his enterprises in line for preferential treatment.
