Political chess or true beliefs? Zuckerberg's surprise Trump pivot

The clean cut hair has grown, his college kid's hoodie is now a gold chain, and his politics have swerved hard right.

Mark Zuckerberg, the boss of Facebook and Instagram, on Tuesday accused governments and so-called legacy media of pushing censorship, and vowed to take his world-dominating platforms back to their "roots."

"We're restoring free expression on our platforms," he asserted in a video posted on his social networks on Tuesday, in which he announces the end of fact-checking in the US.

The out-of-the blue pivot to Trumpian talking points has perplexed many of Zuckerberg's closest watchers, but the tech pioneer's sudden alignment with the right wing is not the first time he has moved to preserve his dominance of social media.

And it also might reflect a position that is closer to his political instincts. Since the earliest days of Facebook, Zuckerberg has always been eager to move unencumbered when it comes to advancing the interests of Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and now Threads.

From the outset Zuckerberg has surrounded himself with Silicon Valley's libertarian voices, including longtime advisors Peter Thiel and Marc Andreessen, the latter being Meta's longest-serving board member.

But the success of Facebook as it grew from a college networking site to the world's primary communication platform quickly brought scandal and forced Zuckerberg to act to fend off government intervention.

Fact-checking and tighter content controls, which Zuckerberg said he was "getting rid of" on Tuesday, were born of such scandals.

After the 2016 US presidential election, widespread criticism about misinformation on the platform, particularly regarding foreign interference and viral false stories, prompted Facebook to implement a fact-checking program.

"The bottom line is: we take misinformation seriously," Zuckerberg wrote at the time.

This initiative represented a significant shift in Facebook's approach to content moderation, which had always been an after-thought, or even a source of scorn, for the disruptors of Silicon Valley.

The subsequent Cambridge Analytica scandal in the late 2010s, which revealed the unauthorized harvesting of millions of Facebook users' personal data, further intensified scrutiny and resulted in Zuckerberg's being hauled before Congress and a beefing up of Facebook content policies.

- 'Kissing the ring' -

Since then, Zuckerberg has demonstrated increasing political acumen, managing to avoid significant US government regulation while appearing cooperative with politicians and contrite with an angry public.

And despite the bad headlines, usership of the sites platforms has only increased over the years.

To some Tuesday's shock announcement is still a play to keep the government at bay, except this time the political tide has turned to Trump, who has made repeated threats against Zuckerberg, accusing him of being too supportive of liberal causes.

"This is a case of kissing the ring," said tech analyst Carolina Milanesi.

"He's doing what it takes to make sure that Trump is going to leave him alone."

A more surprising turn is that his pivot rightwards puts Zuckerberg in line with Elon Musk, who has become a close associate of Trump but is a rival to Zuckerberg.

Quite recently, the two men pledged to fight each other in a mixed martial arts cage fight, as their chest-beating rivalry veered into the ridiculous.

"There is kind of this huge, technocratic billionaire meeting of the minds with Trump and the right, and this buying into this idea of censorship," Kate Klonick, Associate Professor of Law at St. John's University Law School, told a Lawfare panel.

Others suggest that Zuckerberg is afraid Musk will get Trump all to himself.

"There's potentially a bit of billionaire jealousy," said Andrew Selepak, media professor at the University of Florida.

The stakes are huge, especially as Zuckerberg competes with Musk and other tech giants in advancing artificial intelligence.

But for Selepak, Zuckerberg "seems more sincere" when it comes to Tuesday's U-turn.

"It looks like he's making a political shift, a bit like Musk," who had previously supported Democrats, mainly out of concern about climate change.

© Agence France-Presse