Mark Zuckerberg’s political evolution, from excuses to no more excuses

In November 2016, when Facebook was blamed for a flood of fake news and conspiracy theories swirling around the first election of Donald J. Trump, Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of the social network, wrote an apologetic post.

In his message, Mr. Zuckerberg outlined a number of steps he planned to take to combat false and misleading information on Facebook, such as working with fact-checkers.

“The bottom line is: we take misinformation 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, Zuckerberg is no longer apologizing. On Tuesday, he announced that Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Threads, was 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 of Mr. Zuckerberg. In recent years, the CEO, now 40, has moved away from his mea culpa approach to problems on his social platforms. Tired of what has at times appeared to be relentless criticism of his company, he has told executives close to him that he wants to return to his original thinking about free speech, which involves a lighter hand in content dissemination .

Mr. Zuckerberg has reshaped Meta since he made the switch. Gone is the CrowdTangle transparency tool that allowed researchers, academics and journalists to monitor conspiracy theories and misinformation on Facebook. The company’s election integrity team, once trumpeted as a group of experts focused exclusively on voting issues, has been folded into a general integrity team.

Instead, Mr. Zuckerberg promoted 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 has been visible on his social media. Images of him uncomfortably dressed in a suit and tie testifying before Congress have been replaced by videos of him with longer hair and gold chains competing in extreme sports and sometimes hunting for his own food. Long, heavily lawyered Facebook posts about Meta’s commitment to democracy no longer appear. Instead, he’s posted rants on Threads responding to celebrity athletes and videos showcasing the company’s latest AI initiatives.

“This shows how Mark Zuckerberg feels that society is more accepting of the libertarian and right-wing views that 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 his political origins.”

Mr. Zuckerberg has long been a pragmatist who has gone where the political winds have blown. He has flip-flopped on how much political content to show to Facebook and Instagram users, previously saying social networks should be about fun, relatable content from family and friends, but on Tuesday he said Meta would show more personal political content.

Mr. Zuckerberg has told executives close to him that he is comfortable with the new direction for his company. He sees his latest moves as a return to his original thinking about free speech and expression, where Meta limits its monitoring and control of content, said two Meta executives who spoke to Mr. Zuckerberg last week.

Mr. Zuckerberg was never comfortable with the involvement of outside fact-checkers, academics or researchers in his company, one of the executives said. He now sees many of the steps taken after the 2016 election as a mistake, the two executives said.

“Fact checkers have just been too politically biased and have destroyed more trust than they have created,” said Mr. Zuckerberg in one video on Tuesday about the end of the fact-checking program, echoing statements made by top Republicans over the years.

Meta declined to comment.

Those who have known Mr. Zuckerberg for decades, describes him as a natural libertarian who enjoyed reading books extolling free expression and the free market system after he dropped out of Harvard to start Facebook in 2004. As his company grew, pressure grew to becoming more responsive to complaints from world leaders and civil society groups that he was not doing enough to moderate the content on his platform.

Crises, including a genocide in Myanmar where Facebook was accused of allowing hate speech to spread against the Muslim Rohingya people, forced Mr. Zuckerberg to expand moderation teams and define rules around speech on his social network.

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 election in 2016, Mr. Zuckerberg a public campaign to clear his name and redeem his company. He held regular meetings with civic leaders and invited politicians to visit his company’s headquarters, rolled out transparency tools such as CrowdTangle and deployed fact-checkers.

In 2017, he announced that he was conducting a “listening tour” across the United States to “get a broader perspective” on how Americans used Facebook. The campaign-like photo opportunities with farmers and auto workers led to speculation that he was run for political office.

Despite his efforts, Mr. Zuckerberg continued to be blamed for the misinformation and lies that spread on Facebook and Instagram.

In October 2019, Mr. Zuckerberg to retire. In an address at Georgetown University, he said Facebook had been founded to give people a voice.

“I’m here today because I believe we must continue to stand up for free speech,” he said.

In 2021, when the January 6 riots broke out at the US Capitol after the presidential election, Meta was again held responsible for hosting speech that incited the violence. Two weeks later, Mr. Zuckerberg investors that the company is “considering steps” to reduce political content across Facebook.

His development since then has been steady. Leaders who pressured Mr. Zuckerberg to get directly involved in politics, including Ms. Sandberg, have left the company. Those closest to him now welcome his focus on his own interests, which include extreme sports and rap for his wife, as well as promoting his company’s AI initiatives.

In a podcast interview in San Francisco, which Mr. Recording live in front of an audience of 6,000 in September, Zuckerberg spoke for nearly 90 minutes about his love of technology. He said he should have rejected allegations that his company was responsible for societal ills.

“I think the political miscalculation was a 20-year mistake,” he said. He added that it could take another decade for him to move his company’s brand back to where he wanted it.

“We’ll get through it and we’ll come out stronger,” said Mr. Zuckerberg.