In November 2016, when Facebook was blamed for a flood of fake news and conspiracy theories surrounding the first election of Donald J. Trump, Mark Zuckerberg, the social network's CEO, wrote an apologetic post.
In his message, Mr Zuckerberg announced a series of steps he planned to take to tackle false and misleading information on Facebook, such as working with fact-checkers.
“The bottom line is: we take disinformation seriously,” he wrote in a personal Facebook post. “There are many respected fact-checking organizations,” he added, “and while we have reached out to some, we plan to learn from many more.”
Eight years later, Mr. Zuckerberg is no longer apologetic. On Tuesday, he announced that Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Threads, is ending its fact-checking program and returning to its roots around free speech. The fact-checking system had led to “too much censorship,” he said.
It was the latest step in a transformation for Mr. Zuckerberg. In recent years, the now forty-year-old CEO has distanced himself from his mea culpa approach to problems on his social platforms. Fed up with the sometimes incessant criticism of his company, he has told executives around him that he wants to return to his original thinking on freedom of expression, taking a lighter approach to content moderation.
Mr. Zuckerberg reimagined Meta as he made the transition. Gone is the CrowdTangle transparency tool, which allowed researchers, academics and journalists to track conspiracy theories and misinformation on Facebook. The company's election integrity team, once known as a group of experts focused exclusively on election-related issues, has been transformed into an overall integrity team.
Instead, Mr. Zuckerberg has promoted the technology efforts at Meta, including its investments in the immersive world of the so-called metaverse and its focus on artificial intelligence.
Mr Zuckerberg's change is visible on his social media. Photos of him, dressed awkwardly in a suit and tie, and testifying before Congress, have been replaced by videos of him with longer hair and gold chains, participating in extreme sports and sometimes hunting for his own food. Long, heavily praised Facebook posts about Meta's commitment to democracy no longer appear. Instead, he's been posting jokes on Threads reacting to famous athletes and videos showcasing the company's latest AI initiatives.
“This shows how Mark Zuckerberg feels that society is becoming more accepting of the libertarian and right-wing views he has always held,” said Katie Harbath, CEO of Anchor Change, a technology consultancy who previously worked at Facebook. “This is an evolved return to its political origins.”
Mr. Zuckerberg has long been a pragmatist who has gone where the political winds blew. He has questioned how much political content should be shown to Facebook and Instagram users. Previously he said social networks should be about fun, relatable content from family and friends, but on Tuesday he said Meta would show more personalized political content.
Mr Zuckerberg has told executives around him that he is comfortable with his company's new direction. He sees his latest moves as a return to his original thinking on freedom of speech and expression, with Meta limiting monitoring and control of content, said two Meta executives who spoke with Mr. Zuckerberg last week.
Mr. Zuckerberg has never been comfortable with the involvement of third-party fact-checkers, academics or researchers in his company, one of the executives said. He now views many of the steps taken after the 2016 election as a mistake, the two executives said.
“Fact checkers have simply been too politically biased and have destroyed more trust than they have created,” Zuckerberg said in a video Tuesday about the end of the fact-checking program, echoing statements from top Republicans over the years. .
Meta declined to comment.
Those who have known Mr. Zuckerberg for decades describe him as a natural libertarian who enjoyed reading books praising free speech and the free market system after he left Harvard in 2004 to found Facebook. As his business grew, so did the pressure to become. was more responsive to complaints from world leaders and civil society groups that he wasn't doing enough to moderate content on his platform.
Crises, including a genocide in Myanmar, where Facebook was blamed for allowing hate speech against the Muslim Rohingya people, forced Mr. Zuckerberg to expand moderation teams and define rules around speech on his social networks.
He was coached by people close to him, including Meta's former chief operating officer, Sheryl Sandberg, to become more involved in politics. After the 2016 election, Mr. Zuckerberg began a public campaign to clear his name and buy back his company. He held regular meetings with civic leaders and invited politicians to visit his company's headquarters, introduced transparency tools such as CrowdTangle and brought in fact-checkers.
In 2017, he announced he would conduct a “listening tour” of the United States to “get a broader perspective” on how Americans were using Facebook. The campaign-style photo opportunities with farmers and autoworkers led to speculation that he was running for political office.
Despite his efforts, Mr. Zuckerberg was still blamed for the misinformation and falsehoods that spread on Facebook and Instagram.
In October 2019, Mr. Zuckerberg began pushing back. In a speech at Georgetown University, he said Facebook was founded to give people a voice.
“I am here today because I believe we must continue to stand for free speech,” he said.
In 2021, when the January 6 riot broke out at the US Capitol following the presidential election, Meta was again held responsible for making speeches that fueled the violence. Two weeks later, Mr. Zuckerberg told investors that the company was “considering steps” to reduce political content on Facebook.
Its evolution since then has been stable. Executives who pushed Mr. Zuckerberg to get directly involved in politics, including Ms. Sandberg, have left the company. Those closest to him are now applauding his focus on his own interests, which include extreme sports and rapping for his wife, and promoting his company's AI initiatives.
In a podcast interview in San Francisco that Mr. Zuckerberg recorded live to an audience of 6,000 people in September, he talked for nearly 90 minutes about his love of technology. He said he should have rejected accusations that his company was responsible for social ills.
“I think the political miscalculation was a 20-year mistake,” he said. He added that it could take another decade to get his company's brand back to where he wanted it to be.
“We will get through this and come out stronger,” Zuckerberg said.
