Facts don’t matter to Zuckerberg

Have you noticed, says my son, that since that health care boss in the US was shot, Elon Musk keeps walking around with his kid on his shoulders, like a shield?

I laugh because it’s funny. But is it true?

Who knows? Who cares?

It fits my narrative around Musk and that’s what matters.

Facts? Who needs them?

Certainly not the richest men in the world. Certainly not Musk, up there on his ketamine cloud. And certainly not Mark Zuckerberg, who’s really suffered over the last while, or so he told the world last week in a video announcing he’s done with fact checkers at Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp.

“That’s why it’s been so difficult over the past four years when even the US government has pushed for censorship, by going after us and other companies,” said poor Mark, his $900 000 watch weighing heavily on his wrist.

ALSO READ: Meta’s decision to end fact-checking is a ‘reckless and dangerous gamble’, says SA ethics group

I suppose he was referring to his appearance before Congress last January, at a hearing entitled Big Tech and the Online Child Sexual Exploitation Crisis, to investigate why so little had been done to protect teenagers on social media from sexual exploitation and bullying – at which he apologised to the parents holding up photos of their dead children.

Or maybe 2018, when he was called to Congress to discuss data privacy (or lack thereof, following the Cambridge Analytica data breach) and Russian disinformation on his platform.

ALSO READ: US lawmakers win apology from Zuckerberg in ‘Big Tech’ grilling

I presume by censorship he means accountability, right? But it’s okay now.

“First, we’re gonna get rid of fact checkers and replace them with community notes,” he announced, emulating Elon’s X. “We’re gonna get rid of a bunch of restrictions on topics like immigration and gender… I wanna make sure that people can share their experiences and beliefs on our platforms.”

So share their truth, but not necessarily the facts.

But here is a fact. According to Reuters’ 2024 Digital News Report, social media is officially the world’s biggest source of news – of what we hope to be facts. And the richest men in the world control it.

Perhaps Mark could’ve just told his truth; that the lies and disinformation are so pervasive that it’s a battle they’ve lost and he’s delighted to stop spending on it.

Facts? Fire at will. It’s every man for himself.

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