Ladies and gentlemen, we have a repeat guest in the Down Round Hot Seat today. We have Mike Isaac, tech correspondent at the New York Times, Meta whisperer, I think is a fair description. We had Mike on probably like 18 months ago, maybe. And I'm supposed to be finishing my book... well, that's it. I was going to ask you, how's the book going? But I appreciate that that's a hostile question which causes a lot of... we can talk about that, but it is painful. Okay, great. But to give a sense of the time that has passed, when we had Mike on last time we were talking about the metaverse and related topics, which feels a little bit quaint now that Meta has re-engineered itself as an open-source AI and based content platform, which will be what we're talking about today. Mike, welcome to the show.
Thank you, thank you. It's nice to be back. Should we talk about the book off the top? Or should we leave that? That could be a great kind of tease. Maybe we should leave it to the very end, so you, dear listener...
I like that part. Let's do it at the end. You can just figure out if I'm still doing it or not. Amazing. Okay, but obviously the reason we wanted to bring Mike on is that he has been reporting on the current shift underway at Meta. Obviously the big story over the past couple of weeks has been that Mark Zuckerberg is now based, he's following Elon Musk, he's exceeding Elon Musk, he is now right-wing, he is now cool, he's now swaggy, and we are all reaping the spoils. Do you agree?
I mean, I don't know how to answer that. Okay, I'm going to put on my New York Times hat for a minute and just try to be objective and whatever, right? I think it is fair to say for the past 12 to 18 months he had a glow-up in the sense that he was getting more positive attention relative to the rest of his whole life and career, compared to the early days where there was a little more sparkle around his whole thing. And I think that was a big deal for him. I think he was really leaning into it. I think he just hadn't experienced that in more than a decade, right? And that was significant for him personally as well as for this idea that, for once, there could be discussions around Mark Zuckerberg or Meta that weren't universally reviling, or at least a lot of people were. And really in the Valley he had a following of guys that are like, 'based Mark,' like that people say that unironically, right? Which is wild. We all like to be told we're cool, we're cool and based, you know, it scratches an itch. I would love to be told that. I do think it is human to want to be based.
So obviously the story... to be based is human, sorry. So the story, just for the people who haven't been reading the news, and that's okay, I fully empathize, that's all right. The stuff that's been happening over the past couple of weeks, obviously this is post the US election. Mark Zuckerberg has unveiled kind of a tranche of reforms all at once in a sort of PR rollout. You know, he is removing fact-checkers from Facebook and the other Meta properties, he's adding Dana White to the board, he's bringing politics back to Meta platforms. You can now post about what they call civic content after a long time of saying that stuff is fairly suppressed. And I know there's probably a handful of other things in there as well, maybe you can fill in the gaps, but those are kind of the big topline things that he's doing. And obviously it signals, right, in the coattails of what Elon Musk has been doing at X to a certain extent, leaning into free speech, putting himself potentially in the good graces of the incoming Trump administration.
Yeah, no, I mean, I have my... I'm curious actually, I want to turn it back on you. How did you guys feel about this? Because I have my take and I definitely am willing to give it, but I'm curious what your initial first blush was when you were like, 'holy shit, this is all hitting at once.' Were you like...
Well, I mean, should we very quickly, before we do that, should we outline some of the details? Like examples of the speech that was previously not allowed and now is allowed is stuff like 'immigrants are smelly' and things like this is now allowed, that's now free game. And we should probably talk about, you know, he specifically on Joe Rogan said that the content moderation policies in the past were definitely left-wing biased and, you know, we need to be able to have the freedom to say... I mean, there's that leak where certain things were poison or whatever. Exactly, so this is what we're talking about, the ability to be more like X right now, I guess. No, totally, yeah. Reactions, James, you kick us off, mate.
Yeah, so my initial reaction was that obviously the timing is pretty clear, you know, it's post-election, Trump won with a bigger mandate, but I got the sense that a lot of this stuff he probably wanted to implement a while ago. He's found a good cultural moment to do it, a very convenient cultural moment. And there's going to be an element, 100%, of 'we don't want to be regulated,' you know, this realist approach to how you run a company. We've been battling against the Biden administration and the Democrats and what have you when it comes to all different fronts being targeted, we don't want that anymore, so it's great to be aligned with the incoming government so they like us and they don't target us. There's an aspect of that, but there's also the fact that I don't think Mark Zuckerberg or anyone in the upper tier of Meta has really wanted to be doing fact-checking content moderation. They don't like that they're being targeted. Like you kind of said before, he's enjoying his renewed public image, but clearly, and this kind of came through on his Joe Rogan interview... that's the other thing I forgot to mention, went on Rogan, part of this PR rollout. You get the sense that he's been battling these internal demons for a while, like he doesn't want... he's been... yeah, this has been a longer-term conversion for him. Would you agree?
Oh yeah, I'll give you my spiel, but Raph, I want to hear your thoughts too. Oh man, sorry, I just want to get a gut check. I breathe this shit all of the time. Well, but my gut, my broad opinion has been, I've had the same opinion on this kind of stuff for like 15 years, I've been very clear, is that... wow, I personally think on a broader... like Meta, annoyingly, you know, from a Meta perspective, my opinion has always been that it is actually the government's responsibility to create regulations around, you know, what can and can't be shared. And I really hate, more broadly, the fact that it is such a big deal when Meta changes their moderation policies because we've outsourced content moderation, what people can and can't see on the internet, to these massive companies, you know, publicly listed companies, huge multinational conglomerates. And so with regards to my opinion on what moderation policy should or shouldn't be, more broadly I'm like, it shouldn't be up to Meta. Like we can make laws that say, okay, if child porn is posted and it's seen by 600 people, then Meta is responsible for the distribution to those 600 people and they get fined $100,000 per or whatever it is. You know, you can make regulations that follow our current laws. We did it with TV, we have ratings and restrictions and third parties say this is G, this is PG, this is R. So I've always been of that opinion more broadly. When it comes to this actual thing, then, you know, there's a litany of reasons why I think he's done it.
No, so I totally agree with you on the regulation part. And like, it's very funny because in the US Meta has said, 'we want to be regulated, we invite regulation,' you know. And I think the big caveat there should be, 'we want to be regulated in the way we would like to be regulated,' you know. Like they can... and there's two things. One, it is incumbent upon Congress here and they have not produced any meaningful bills that have pushed through, right? Like they really haven't in the eight years that they've cared about it. In the United States, they have been getting regulated in a big way in the EU, and Mark fucking hates the EU, and all they do is complain about the EU. Or all Mark did on this Rogan interview was complain about the Biden administration and how much they hated them, right? So like, I think we don't take Meta at their word that 'we want to be regulated.' I think that's bullshit. I think they want to be softly regulated in a way that doesn't harm their business. But I totally agree with you that if we have to depend on Zuckerberg and their overarching framework to speech changing every four to eight years based on what's happening in the United States, which they specifically care about the most, that's not tenable, right? And I think... just so I think you guys are both dead on. There's a few things going on. So I talked to... we did this one story that was kind of like inside what happened over the last six weeks, right? And so Mark made this decision after going to Mar-a-Lago, Trump's private club in Florida, which is like... it's like Trumpism made flesh, right? Like every aspect of his life and personality, you know, in this club in Florida.
Yeah, it's the Imperial Palace, right? It's right, right, right. Like I don't know if I could do it. I don't know if I could walk in there. It would be... I absolutely...
Too G for you, mate. You're too G to go there. I'm sorry, I just... I don't want to put on airs, I just have a reputation to maintain. Oh. But I do, I think, one, they are existentially threatened by a hostile administration, especially a hostile Trump administration, for some of the reasons that Trump and Republicans have said over the years: break up Facebook, cram down forms of what they see as anti-censorship rules or regulations, repealing certain Section 230, which is a big deal here, it's a liability shield for them. And as far as Trump is willing to go, as far as writing that he wants to put Zuckerberg himself in jail, right? So like, it's not really hypothetical when Facebook and Meta have to think about danger for them there. So I do think part of it is exactly where you're talking about, James, was just sort of meeting this political moment. But like, two things. One, I think they're doing it in a more cynical way of communicating than I've ever seen them really be explicit about it. You know, like all of the language was the language of Trumpism, the language of talking to conservatives straight through Fox News, bashing all of their old initiatives, trashing DEI, trashing supporting minorities, trans and non-binary folks. And again, whatever your opinions on that is, whether you think DEI is good or bad or whatever, what was more interesting to me is like, they know how they're presenting this. They are very forcefully saying, 'here's the group we're catering to here because they're in power,' you know. And that for me was a huge shift than that I've seen them do in the past.
Well, yeah, that was... sorry, that was the other thing I forgot to mention. In the tranche of things they've done is like eliminating all the Meta DEI hiring policy, you know, the symbol thing of taking tampons out of the men's rooms or whatever. And obviously, I mean, this is the part where it kind of breaks down for me slightly, is that I do believe personally that Mark Zuckerberg has probably had, you know, a come-to-Jesus moment about politics over the past however many years. I'm sure that's true in the same way that many tech people have. I don't think it's outside... you know, he's gotten on TRT, you know, he's been taking his testosterone injections and he's become more based. It's a story of all this time. Who among us... in four years of lockdown, yeah, yeah. But the other side of it is like, you know, he also... he brought this up on Rogan where he was kind of like, you know, 'I control Facebook, I have supermajority shares, blah blah blah,' and he does control Facebook or Meta to a degree that many tech CEOs don't control their companies. But also that comes back to the fact where it's like, you know, he has done these sort of apologetic about-faces on issues in the past, and it's not like he's just walked into the boardroom after four years and been like, 'My God, what's happening in here?' Like he was leading the charge in all this stuff when it was more expedient to be pro, to be, you know, whatever, talk about immigration a lot, talk about keeping people feeling safe on platforms. And now, you know, it makes complete sense from a PR perspective to be speaking in the current lingo of conservatism, whatever, fine. But also I can see, you know, and from the other perspective, why some conservative people are like, 'I'm not buying it, brother, like I'm not buying it. You are actually... you've had this Damascene conversion or whatever.'
No, totally. And like, just to your point, the other part of it is I do think he has privately... so just from some of our reporting being borne out, I don't think I appreciated the degree to which he was tired of being, these are not his words that I've heard, but too woke, right, or like too progressive. But like, this stuff, this is shit that he's been thinking about for a while. This is definitely like the circle of friends that he's around. He's specifically said getting into MMA and shit, which is very funny to me. It's like, 'I'm going to now become a cage fighter and then everything is too woke.' Like that is... there's a meme that he's having a midlife crisis now, but that is like fodder of midlife crisis stuff. Like, okay, you don't have to develop a new personality just because you got a new hobby, you know, like that's a little much. But like, he has been thinking about this stuff for a while. I don't think it's a put-on completely, but like, what happens... I understand where people on the right are like, 'Bro, like you're just completely changing, you're doing a heel turn after fucking eight years of...' what you can look back just over the couple of months of seeing like different supportive DEI posts or, you know, civil rights groups or every sort of... they scrubbed like trans themes from their products, right? The Messenger product, they... the tampon thing, they removed them from, and all this stuff, they scrub trans themes.
Oh, as in like you can set the background to the trans flag and stuff? Yeah, like a wallpaper that was like... it's just like this little... like again, I didn't even know this shit existed, right? And until someone inside was like, 'Hey, this thing where you could set your Messenger wallpaper to trans colors no longer exists anymore because the VP of design was told to change it.' So like... well, this is interesting though, right? Yeah, like so I think that... well, we all seem to agree from, you know, again, from a business perspective, you save money by cutting all of this moderation stuff. And you know, I guess from a business complexity perspective, you're simplifying it by outsourcing most of your moderation to someone else, you're washing your hands of it. From a political perspective, he's trying to influence Trump, sure. But where does what he believes kind of stop? And I don't believe that Mark Zuckerberg truly thinks that it's a problem that you can do a trans flag theme in Messenger, right? That said, I know he's pissed off at people for, like the Democrats and whatnot, for being mad at him about Cambridge Analytica for the last 10 years or whatever it is. So like, I get that. Kind of my best question is, where does the genuine conservatism like end? Or is it the whole way? Is he genuinely... he's anti-trans now? I don't think it's that.
Yeah, no, I think that's a great point and a great question, and I don't have an exact answer, but I think you're right. Like, I don't think he's some rabid TERF who doesn't want to see a fucking blue, pink and white flag anywhere in his vision at all. And like, there... so actually, now you bring that up, I heard from someone pretty high up yesterday after our story came out, and they were like, 'I don't know where the tampon thing came from, but we're trying to... like that was not cool.' And so like, I think they're... when at these fucking giant companies, some level of like, some fucking decided to do this and then the ball gets rolling, you know. I don't know who decided it. My best guess would be Mark Zuckerberg did not decide to take the tampons out of the bathrooms on day one. But like, does he do a lot of facilities management? He's on the phone with the custodians all day? No, yeah. But you're right, like how much of this was signaling by the people who are paid in his org to do that signaling to Washington versus like how much of this does he buy into? And I don't know where that line ends. That's hard to figure out right now.
Well, one interesting thing that was in your story actually, and I've spoken to a couple people who have been at Meta in Australia and around it, and they've often kind of talked about how decision-making gets done, and the fact that occasionally they have seemingly turned on a dime on something, or something has been implemented and actioned really quickly, and they didn't have a huge amount of insight into how long the consultation process was. But in your story you kind of talk about how they often brought in all these civil rights groups and various stakeholders into the consultation process for various things they've done, but in this case it didn't seem like that happened, and it was more kind of like ruling by fiat and being like, 'this is how it's going to be.' Is that kind of how this was rolled out?
Yeah, for sure. I think... no, I think you're right. Like, your sources are right, like they do move quick on things, and not everyone, not everything needs consensus rule. And when Mark wants to do something, he can do it. But like, folks I had talked to in, you know, policy teams or integrity teams, they described this more deliberative process, especially on something as big as this, right? Like this is not just like tweaking some fucking bylaw. This is like, this will fundamentally change how people encounter speech on Facebook in a lot of ways, right? And may cause them pain, or may cause them to want to just leave, or may cause them fucking joy that they can spout all sorts of pretty, you know, venomous stuff against different groups, right? So the process was very small. What we heard was no more than a dozen or so close advisors all at the top, just like a real sprint to do this. These two guys that everyone should keep an eye on if you care about policy is Joel Kaplan, who if you followed Facebook for any amount of time you know he's like their right-wing whisper guy, Bush-era Republican, and to a lesser extent but still pretty powerful, this guy Kevin Martin, who's his deputy, who's now been elevated. And Nick Clegg, who was former deputy PM in Britain, that came to Facebook five or six years ago, I want to say, he was like the ambassador, he's now gone because he was kind of seen as more like Democrat-friendly, I would say, from his Lib Dem days. So like, it has been an administration shift internally that basically is a bet on Trumpism and on this idea. But I was actually thinking about this today, like I was thinking about, okay, this is a bet on four years of Trump, but I think it also signals a bet on Democrats. If there's a Democratic administration four years from now, it's a signaling that Democrats are also backing away from woke or PC speech-policing sort of stuff, which you're already kind of seeing in Democratic circles now. And like, I don't know if that's going to happen. I have no fucking idea what's going to happen. I don't even know if we're going to get another Democratic administration in four years. But it does feel like they are saying, you know, we're not going to get beat up by whatever next admin... we're hoping we're not going to get beat up for the next administration that comes in.
Yeah, I mean, I don't think so much it's going to be the woke stuff that Democrats are going to be particularly mad about, more so the political stuff. Like if the nature of Facebook changes so that political speech is, I guess, more elevated, and the dominant form of political speech is right-wing because the platform's made this right-wing turn, like that's going to piss off Democrats. And obviously the retribution they can take, because I guess the stuff they've already done, we're talking about, you know, FTC, we're talking about breakups, we're talking about anti-competitive behavior, we're talking about, you know, monopoly, whatever they can, whatever they want to do, they can do to make life difficult. That is one part of me that maybe there's something... I don't know. I've said it before, I'm antipasti, and we're a long way away, but three and a half years, four years, like that's not a long, long time in business. And is this something that he can so quickly kind of roll back? I don't think so. I feel like this is particularly big. Like it's not like he ever came out and was like, you know, even when he did his listening tour or whatever, that I am stridently, you know, pro the Democratic administration or whatever, although that was actually Trump at the time anyway. But like, it's not like he's ever, you know, overtly said I'm Democrat to the extent that he has here. I don't know, I just... that longer-term play, they've obviously worked out that either they don't... they're not that worried about the Democrats doing anything, or yeah, they just, I guess they think for the perceivable future this is now the grand narrative, whatever.
Yeah, that's... you're right. The most he would do... I just remember back in 2016, I mean, I guess he banned Trump from Facebook, I guess that's seen as pretty life or whatever, and even that was when he was on the way out, right? January 6th was before inauguration, he was heading out. That was also kind of a bet that Trump was a blip rather than the norm, right, or going to return ever. So I think like much of their history has been a lot of fence-sitting from him, but like he would do these little... I have been reading his Facebook posts, close-reading for way too much in my fucking life at this point, but like he would do these little, like not so... not completely opaque, but like slight defiance in his posts sometimes, right? When Trump got elected, he was like, 'progress is not on a straight line,' right, which is like probably not something you're going to say to the guy you wanted to win or whatever. So like there's... he's had over the years flashes of 'this is how I feel,' which is why I'm like, okay, ostensibly I believe that you have had a change in views over time. I don't think that's insane, but I agree with you, Raph, like this is not a fence-sitting position. This is a fucking... I'm staking my claim here, you know. It would be hard to do a similar heel turn like this in four years, you know. I don't know what that's going to look like.
Yeah, because you know the nature of electoral politics in a democracy is that, you know, the pendulum swings back and forth, and we can reasonably assume there's going to be some sort of... in the US, the Democrats are going to win again, you know, whether it's in four years or eight. And you know, I guess this is a bet that whatever these new free speech norms are, they're like relatively durable and will stick around, because it's not... it probably doesn't make a huge amount of sense, and I'm sure they're talking about this internally, to just like follow the public mood back and forth, which is okay when you're kind of like a, you know, just a guy living out in the world who's trying to live in polite society and have the right opinions, but it doesn't really work when you're like a $3 trillion US... three guys. Yeah, exactly, you know, whatever's cool to say at any given moment. That's me, that's where I'm at. Like, yeah, yeah, yeah, sure, that's cool. One of the other aspects is TikTok. Like, how much do you think that the TikTok ban, which obviously Zuckerberg wants to happen, has had anything to do with, well, at least him trying to jump into bed as deeply as he can, you know, with the new administration?
Well, that's another sort of funny thing to think about, Zuckerberg reversals over the years. Like there was a period not insanely long ago where he was dead set on getting into China and, you know, schmoozing Xi Jinping, saying, 'I wouldn't... you know, can you suggest a name for my firstborn daughter?' when that's like... when they had dinner and the Chinese president was like, 'what the fuck is this guy talking about?' But like it was very... and you know, like the version of the story I've heard is like it was a little bit of like Mark being awkward, but like it's still kind of probably an insane thing to ask someone. But like that you go from that sort of thing where... and like the ironic story forever go on how like they were considering building some tool that a Chinese subsidiary would decide what speech of Facebook was allowed inside of Chinese-hosted servers if Facebook were allowed in the country. So there's that version of Facebook which was like not that far back ago, like 2016, 2017 I think is when they started really giving up, to now, which is America first, we are, you know, we're making a bet on being a very American tech company, we espouse American values, sort of like this MAGA version of... and appealing to both Congress and the president saying, 'if you want American supremacy in the tech industry as it exists now, you need to keep having the wind at our backs and not sort of like threatening to break us up,' because TikTok came in incredibly fast for how large they are. I remember when they were still Musical.ly, if you even remember this, like tiny app. And so I think that's the real talk about fucking reversals, like that's just like a total heel turn. But also that's what he's betting on, he's like, right, I'm going to go full America and hope we can sell that.
You know, it is kind of... I mean, this is like an angular point, but it is kind of interesting that, you know, and this has been litigated over and over again, this idea that, you know, Elon Musk is a political player now and is happy to intervene in whatever jurisdiction he wants to see a change of government in or whatever, but it's pretty unlikely, and he has displayed that he's not going to say anything about China and the Chinese Communist Party. On the one hand, you know, you can look at that as complete rational politics, there's nothing Elon Musk says is going to change what the Communist Party does or doesn't do, but there's also the sense that he has huge... he actually has huge existing business in China, whereas Zuckerberg doesn't have that. So it's kind of funny to see the two sides of the coin there.
I think that like... and you know, one thing I'll say is like there are people... there are not a small number of people in the Valley who are like, 'look man, this is fucking business, right? Like you have to...' like he wants his company... I mean, Mark is obsessed with not only survival but dominance, right? And so I think his beliefs tend to shift pretty quickly over the years, and that's a worrisome trait in a leader. But one of the constants has been the best good... whatever you think good is, the best good he feels he can do is by maintaining his position, right? And in, you know, the world of capitalism, you have to ensure the safety and protection of your company, and that's like what he believes he's doing right now, is just sort of keeping Meta in a place where it can thrive. And now where they may have fucked themselves is like putting themselves in a position eight, ten years ago where the corporate world has to have some sort of moral voice or authority in the world, right? Or like you have to take a position on Trump being elected or gay rights or, you know, Black Lives Matter, any of that, right? Like you yourselves have entered this arena, and it's not that I think pinkwashing capitalism is a good or positive development, but like it's fair game for you guys now, right?
Yeah, license to operate, that you don't hear about that so much. It is kind of just reflecting on some of the things you were saying, like A, the firstborn child thing, and B, just how pandering he is being to a guy who, again, to his face... I mean, it's not a good look. Like that is... I wouldn't want to be seen like that personally. I wouldn't want to be seen like that because like there's another... well, first, feels beta in that parlance, I guess is what I would say.
Yeah, admit it, if you were sitting with Xi Jinping, you would ask him what's the name first. I'm telling you right now that you would do that.
I would say, all right, fair enough. Say like, 'Tian, it's all yours, brother. Please, please.' I am thinking about myself, like at parties, I'm like, 'yeah, that's a great idea.' Yeah, I mean, I was just going to say, I reckon that Zuckerberg must just every day regret the fact that he banned Trump from Facebook. I feel like that is probably a huge turning point, sliding doors moment, because like the other way to do all of this is you say to be like, 'oh, we've decided to change our moderation policies and to be more in line with what X does, we have found it's been ineffective and the community actually has the best voice,' and blah blah blah blah blah, and just change it, right? And that wouldn't be... people be annoyed, I'm sure people have opinions, but it wouldn't be so like political, because to be frank, like it's reasonable to... moderation is hard, it's reasonable to try different forms of moderation. The one, you know, the one on X might be like a legitimate form...
of moderation, I don't know if I'm that comfortable, as I've said before, with like there's some kind of faceless panel of Meta, and I mean some of them not so faceless, you know, they've actually got that board. What happened to that board? The moderation board, you know, oh, the oversight, the vestigial tale of Facebook, right? Like the Belgian former prime minister or whatever. God damn, did they just lose? Can't tell if that's a positive. Is that moving up or down in the world to move from the presidency to that board?
Yeah, but no, they still exist. They could be out on their ass, man. That poor form. Actually, don't I feel like I remember there being some public, like some publicity around them taking on some particular case or whatever, but I certainly have not heard a lot from them in the realm of like making binding decisions about how Facebook should be moderated, which is again comes down to the same thing where it's like, you know, the fact-checking stuff, and obviously they outsourced it to all these partner organizations around the world. That was a good way to keep it at arm's length and be like, we're not making these decisions, it's being made by AAP Fact Check Nigeria or whatever, whoever was running it in whatever given territory. But like I think you flagged this in your story as well, it was totally invisible what happened at that point. Like it's been a long time since I've seen like a, there was a period where I was seeing on Facebook and Instagram some like little flags that said this has been proven wrong by whatever, but then I haven't seen them in a very long time, and you also don't know what content is being taken down on the basis of what these fact-checkers are saying, so you know, who knows, maybe they've done nothing with it.
I think that so there's the fact-checking stuff, there is actually reasonable discussion to have there, and like was this worth doing? Is this functioning like in a way that makes it like, look, Facebook sees billions of posts pass through it every single day. You get three or four partner organizations to litigate one post, or like, or even a hundred posts a day, or a thousand posts a day, that is nothing, right? Like that is, that is nothing at the Facebook scale. They are very well aware of that, and so like I'm not trying to insult fact-checkers, I just think that it's like one of these things where it is a smaller change compared to an overhaul of their policies around very specifically, you know, contentious speech that should or should not be allowed on the platform. And so I think because journalists are self-obsessed, we all latch on to the fact-checking thing. I mean, I'm certainly in the US, everyone was like, it's ending fact-checking, like that's, that's important, but like it's important to a degree, but like A, changing policy, and B, the thing we haven't even talked about is like them now shoving politics back into the feed after a year of saying no one wants to see this, this is why we're taking it all out of all our apps. It's like, that's why I'm like, everything you guys say is kind of like cynical horseshit of the moment, right? Like that is what is really hard to swallow.
I mean, it was pretty clear, you know, anyone who's used Facebook at any point over the past 15 years will know that people actually do love seeing and talking about politics on Facebook, often in very like loud and nasty ways. That's one of the, you know, and this Facebook, people love getting into it, and that's just the way it is. So it was obviously false that people didn't like to engage with that content, and to the extent it was true, was because Facebook was not showing it to people, so they could then show their chart and be like, look, this has declined over X number of months or whatever. But I'm also amenable, and I'm sure a lot of people are, to the argument that, you know, regardless of what your specific views are on fact-checking and content moderation, I'm very amenable to the idea that like it has been net bad because it's inflamed lots of people, it's made people angrier and less trusting of institutions, you know, and on the other side now you've got people who have basically the same beliefs they had before, but they're also just like dramatically more pissed off. I think you can, you can look at that and be like, that is a bad outcome. So it was either something to do with fact-checking fundamentally or the way it was done. So when Zuckerberg gets up and be like, they were too biased, you know, they weren't doing the job properly, I can look at that and be like, yeah, probably true, and it's helpful that, you know, it's helpful to you because you never probably never wanted to do it in the first place, but you know, but anyone that spends any time on X these days will know is that as a dramatically more productive environment at the moment, you know.
Well, hasn't, doesn't all research show as well, like people see something's been fact-checked and basically no one changes their opinion on anything, they just like, don't, you pissed people off more, or they were like, my thing. I, God, I specifically remember talking to a number of, you know, people who identified as conservatives for some story years ago, and they perceived those flags, you know, like some warning thing or a flag or this is wrong or something, they were like, Facebook is penalizing me, we're being unfairly punished every time I see this. It's not like, it had probably the adverse effect, it's not educating them, it's just making them feel more persecuted for what they feel are their correct beliefs. So I don't know what the answer to that is. Does that mean do away with it entirely? I have no idea, but like that was the outcome that they had there.
