Attention to the Unseen

The New York Times reports: Mark Zuckerberg kept the circle of people who knew his thinking small. Last month, Mr. Zuckerberg, the chief executive of Meta, tapped a handful of top policy and communications executives and others to discuss the company’s approach to online speech. He had decided to make sweeping changes after visiting President-elect Donald J. Trump at Mar-a-Lago over Thanksgiving. Now he needed his employees to turn those changes into policy. Over the next few weeks, Mr. Zuckerberg…

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Who's actually surprised that this little asshole was basically just a fascist incel hiding in plain sight? not me. Remember that Facebook was originally just a website created by a sexually frustrated Zuckerberg to rate the bangability levels of female students at his college. [image or embed] — ❄️Hugo the pink snow cat❄️ (@hugothepinkcat.bsky.social) January 10, 2025 at 2:13 PM Bloomberg News reports: Mark Zuckerberg lamented the rise of “culturally neutered” companies that have sought to distance themselves from “masculine…

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Yaёl Eisenstat writes: Mark Zuckerberg announced a spate of changes in Meta’s approach to speech and moderation issues this week, part of his longstanding effort to dominate the information landscape while resisting responsibility for his company’s contributions to political violence, extremism, and other antidemocratic activities in the United States and around the world. Let’s talk about the most serious implications. Two of the key changes are that Meta will end fact-checking and roll back content moderation. According to reporting from…

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Elizabeth Lopatto writes: I’ll spare you the experience of listening to one of the richest men in the world whine and just tell you straight out: Mark Zuckerberg’s interview on The Joe Rogan Experience is full of lies. Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook’s parent company Meta, sets the tone at the very beginning: “I think at some level you only start one of these companies if you believe in giving people a voice, right?” Unfortunately I wasn’t born yesterday, and I…

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The Intercept reports: Meta is now granting its users new freedom to post a wide array of derogatory remarks about races, nationalities, ethnic groups, sexual orientations, and gender identities, training materials obtained by The Intercept reveal. Examples of newly permissible speech on Facebook and Instagram highlighted in the training materials include: “Immigrants are grubby, filthy pieces of shit.” “Gays are freaks.” “Look at that tranny (beneath photo of 17 year old girl).” The changes are part of a broader policy…

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The New York Times reports: When Laura Loomer, a far-right activist, regained control of her Twitter account in late 2022, she knew whom to praise for her reinstatement. “Thank you, Elon!” she wrote to Elon Musk, who had recently bought the social network. In another post, Ms. Loomer, who had been booted from the platform in 2018 for writing an anti-Muslim message, complimented Mr. Musk’s commitment to “free speech.” Ms. Loomer is now sharing a different message about Mr. Musk….

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Mathew Ingram writes: Unless you’ve been living on the moon or under a rock, you probably know that on Tuesday, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced a major change in the company’s policy around free speech and fact-checking. Wearing his new uniform of curly hair and a gold neck chain (and a $900,000 watch) to address his subjects… er, users, Zuck described the changes as a restoration of “free expression” on the company’s platforms and a return to Facebook’s free-speech roots, but what it boils down…

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Reuters reports: U.S. billionaire Elon Musk drew criticism from German politicians from the government and opposition on Sunday for an opinion piece he wrote backing the right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD) which they deemed “intrusive” outside influence. The support of the AfD from Musk, who is set to serve U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s administration as an outside adviser, comes as Germans are set to vote on Feb. 23 after a coalition government led by Chancellor Olaf Scholz collapsed. The commentary…

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Texas Observer reports: Under owner Elon Musk, the social media site X, formerly known as Twitter, has become a hotbed of white supremacist and neo-Nazi content. A recent headline in the Atlantic doesn’t mince words: “X is a white supremacist site.” Musk has allowed formerly banned far-right and neo-Nazi accounts back on the platform, and, in some instances, he’s directly responded to accounts that traffic in white supremacist and neo-Nazi rhetoric. Meanwhile, anonymous accounts that regularly promote racial hate on…

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