"No one tells us they want to see misinformation. That’s why we work with independent fact checkers to stop hoaxes that are going viral from spreading"—Mark Zuckerberg, 2019
"We're going to get rid of fact-checkers and replace them with community notes similar to X"—Mark Zuckerberg, 2025.
Liberals are outraged.
Everything Mark Zuckerberg ever told them about truth, misinformation, online safety, and the importance of protecting free expression was a lie.
Fact checkers are out. Misinformation is back. Hateful conduct no longer needs moderation.
2025 Mark Zuckerberg has no problem with the kinds of hateful lies, personal insults, and conspiracy theories that are commonly shared on X by the likes of Elon Musk and embraced by mentally damaged individuals such as the Tesla Terrorist in Las Vegas.
It's now OK, for example, for Facebook's 3 billion+ users to call women "household objects" and attack members of the LGBTQ+ community as "abnormal" or "mentally ill."
The life-and-death dangers of Zuckerberg’s shock decision were immediately illustrated by the swirl of misinformation and fake AI imagery that flooded social media amid the devastating LA fires. We can only hope that, as both X and Facebook become even less reliable for real-time news, "traditional media" can make a concerted effort to convince consumers to seek out more fact-based sources.
What is Zuckerberg playing at?
Zuckerberg's public capitulation to Trump is obviously craven and transactional. It’s also highly offensive to the non-Trump majority of US voters.
Zuck claims that Trump's third successive failure to reach 50% in the popular vote "feels like a cultural tipping point" right before he promises "to work with President Trump" in his efforts to "prioritize speech."
To make sure Trump noticed Meta's new policy of kowtowing to Dear Leader, Zuckerberg sent his new Chief Global Affairs Officer Joel Kaplan to Fox & Friends to explain the new policies. Kaplan is a rock-solid Republican, whose career highlights include nearly 6 years in the George W. Bush administration, the last three as deputy chief of staff for policy.
Within hours, the Fox & Friends viewer known as "Audience of One" was publicly gloating that he had forced the Meta founder to fall in line—with Trump claiming that his public threats to imprison Zuckerberg had caused the world's third-richest man, worth more than $200 billion, to submit to this abasement.
But maybe that’s only half the story. Or perhaps less than half.
Zuckerberg is hitting Musk with some jiu-jitsu moves
Zuckerberg's pro-MAGA conversion—complete with pro-Trump "hostage video" and a Biden-bashing appearance on Joe Rogan—can also be viewed as a stealth attack on Musk, just at a moment when the X-Man has betrayed and belittled Trump's anti-immigrant base, launching a "civil war" over the issue of H-1B visas.
Viewed in this light, Zuckerberg's move—telling MAGA voters (most of whom don't use X) they can have Facebook back—is a great way to make Meta even more valuable to Trump for as far as he can see into the future, which is about four years.
The aging Trump has a short-term, dictatorial vision in which he dominates media and social media for his own self-aggrandizing (and self-enriching) purposes.
The next time Zuckerberg schmoozes Trump at dinner at Mar-a-Lago or the White House, he'll not only be able to tell him he's the number one on Facebook. He'll also be able to fluff him up with YUGE numbers based on the combined reach of Facebook, Instagram and Threads—which give Trump a MAGA megaphone that reaches at least 10X more users than X.
Such talk will delight Trump, who understands propaganda as well as he understands corruption.
What Trump knows—and cares—nothing about is the AI-powered, science-fiction future Musk and Zuckerberg are competing to control.
"MAGA Meta" gives Zuckerberg a fighting chance in his next war—against Elon Musk
Zuckerberg's public capitulation to Trump comes at a moment when Musk has severely weakened his standing with MAGA diehards and influencers.
Zuck needs the MAGA hordes to look on him kindly. Because he knows Musk is already several moves ahead when it comes to manipulating the mentally feeble Trump.
On the campaign trail, Trump vowed to make "Elon's life good."
When the H-1B civil war broke out, Trump sided with the Tesla boss.
And Trump has already allowed Musk to install key allies David Sacks and Jared Isaacman inside the Administration, positioning them to play key roles in guiding AI policy and the future of NASA.
With AI and robotics poised for exponential and unstoppable growth during Trump's upcoming term, Zuckerberg needs to act fast. He needs to make Meta as politically useful to Trump as it can possibly be—and make sure Trump knows that Meta is more valuable to him than X (or even a merged X-Truth Social platform) will ever be.
For Zuck, it's not about appeasing Trump. It's about defeating Musk
The Zuck-Musk battle may be about global supremacy, but it's also driven by personal animosity.
Their once-promised cage fight may not have happened, but that doesn't mean that the years-long enmity between them has faded.
Their public squabbles, which date back to at least 2016, escalated further in 2023, especially after Meta launched Threads as a direct competitor to Twitter in July of that year.
After Musk went all-in on fascism in 2024, Zuckerberg tried to stay out of politics. Their social media squabbling diminished. But their business rivalry intensified, especially when it came to AI.
Both Meta and Tesla have made AI integral to their current businesses and future vision. And both Zuckerberg and Musk believe that if their company wins the race to achieve Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) and Artificial Superintelligence (ASI) the benefits they reap will look less like traditional "business advantage" and more like a video game victor's "total domination."
Zuckerberg has bet big on AI—committing tens of billions annually on AI projects—and is one of the few companies to have already shown Wall Street some actual ROI on the money spent.
Musk's AI vision has yet to pay off. But it's more expansive, world-changing—and monopolistic—than Zuck's.
If Musk does become dominant in AI and robotics, he will have an advantage that no one else can compete with, especially if he has the US government in his pocket.
That's why, with his new hairdo and his $900,000 watch, Zuckerberg is embracing the showmanship of the MAGA bro world.
He's added to his cred in that world by naming Ultimate Fighting Championship CEO Dana White, a prominent Trump buddy, to the Meta board.
Some view White as a "Trump spy" within Meta. But Zuckerberg likely views White as a crucial ally in the effort to communicate directly how much value "MAGA Meta" is delivering for Trump.
If all goes well for Zuck, Meta (Facebook) will quickly re-establish its dominance in right-wing (rural, older, white) politics again, give MAGA influencers new ways to extend their reach, and stuff X back in its city-dwelling-elite box.
The new Meta policies will be bad news for non-MAGA users who spend time on social media—and may encourage many of them to use Meta platforms less or quit them entirely.
But if Zuck takes some short-term hits to his ad business, that's just the price of staying in the game.
His real goal is to stop Musk dictating the new, Trumpified rules of AI and turning Tesla into a $25-trillion robot company, en route to establishing a post-dollar world ruled by a cabal of global crypto oligarchs.
Nothing that Zuckerberg has built in the 20+ years since he co-founded TheFacebook in 2004 will be of any consequence if Musk turns his sponsorship of the second Trump Presidency into a springboard to global AI domination.
Everything that matters will be decided in the next four years.
The real cage match has begun.
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P.S. This really is the time to get off X once and for all. Please find me on Bluesky and these other places.
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