OPINION: The golden tortoise beetle is a remarkable creature, capable of changing from shiny gold through to various shades of brown or red when disturbed. It’s a survival skill that signals the insect’s maturity, while also offering defence against the predators lurking in the North American wilderness.
This spineless creature came to mind when Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg announced this month that he would do away with fact checkers, among a number of other wide-sweeping changes set to be rolled out across Facebook and Instagram.
“Fact checkers have been too politically biased and have destroyed more trust than they've created,” said Zuckerberg, donning some geometric bling, in a five-minute scripted video posted online.
More harmful content, admitted Zuckerberg, would flow onto the platform as a consequence of these changes.
This a significant flip-flop from a person who over the last decade has (albeit reluctantly) pledged to fight misinformation and improve the quality of public discourse on his channels.
There’s an argument here that Zuckerberg has revealed himself as a political tortoise beetle, changing his hue in line with the mood and the USA’s government of the moment.
On the surface this does appear to be the case, but the reality is also slightly more nuanced than this.
In his essay Inventing the Enemy, Italian cultural critic and political commentator Umberto Eco writes that leaders (and the civilisations they govern) always have an interest in depicting someone as an enemy.
“Having an enemy is important not only to define our identity but also to provide us with an obstacle against which to measure our system of values and, in seeking to overcome it, to demonstrate our own worth,” writes Eco.
“So when there is no enemy, we have to invent one.”
Zuckerberg has always been very careful in his selection of words – and this video sermon is no different.
“Governments and legacy media have pushed to censor more and more,” he says, making no secret of who he sees as the greatest enemy to Facebook in the current (Trump-led) context.
While this statement has the semblance of truthiness, which makes it compelling, all media companies (and governments) have ever really demanded is for social media to be held to the same standards as local media companies.
In New Zealand that means being beholden to the rules as laid out by the Media Council, Advertising Standards Authority and the Broadcasting Standards Authority. It’s not about increasing censorship, but rather ensuring that long-existing rules of civility remain.
Zuckerberg, of course, knows this and is using this language to paint media and the government as the enemy of free speech and therefore a reformed Facebook.
In doing this, Zuckerberg takes a calculated risk. Over the last decade, he’s come to realise that his half-baked efforts to moderate content aren’t going to win over governments and media critics, so he’s adopting a different strategy.
By his own admission Zuckerberg concedes that harmful content will increase, but he views this as less damaging than the potential harm that legislative intervention or the perception of censored Facebook will have on the company’s brand.
Executives consistently make these calculations when weighing the levels of risk in taking one stance or the other, which is often what sound communications strategies are built on.
This also comes as there is a broader shift in the way that people are using social media these days. For years, critics and analysts have prophesied the death of Facebook. While those dropping engagement trends are also starting to creep into Instagram, any predictions on the imminent death of either misses the underlying trend of use.
The reason public posts and engagement are declining is because most users are now taking their conversations to private messaging and closed community groups. This is perhaps best evidenced in Zuckerberg’s big purchase of Whatsapp, which today plays host to everything from private family conversations about grocery lists to business correspondence.
And as this trend continues to grow, the application of fact checkers to social media becomes less obvious. Even to the most ardent advocate for civil discourse, the thought of fact checkers intervening in private conversations or groups would feel like over-reach.
Those with extreme views have always found ways to connect both online and in the real world, and law enforcement officials will have their work cut out for them in identifying threats closed groups in the future.
What’s clear is that Facebook is washing its hands of this responsibility – except in the most egregious examples.
The executives at Facebook have perhaps also realised that they have been fighting a losing corporate and cultural battle of whack-a-mole, with their performance based on what they miss rather than what they’re getting right. The constant stream of negative press Facebook has received in recent years suggests it’s done little to improve brand sentiment.
Zuckerberg has undergone a metamorphosis. He’s done pretending. He’s done apologising. He’s ditched the Caesar hairstyle for flowing locks.
And in making this move, he’s shed his cosy multicoloured ecoskeleton and revealed who he really is: a tech business owner willing to do whatever it takes to make his organisation as profitable and viable as possible – and if he can ride a political wave while doing it, he won’t hesitate for a moment.
Damien Venuto is a senior consultant at corporate public relations firm One Plus One Communications.
This piece first ran on The Post.
