Why did Zuckerberg choose now to confess?

pooky55@lemm.eebanned from sitebanned from site to Technology@lemmy.world – -61 points – Why Did Zuckerberg Choose Now to Confess? ⋆ Brownstone Institute
brownstone.org

This is interesting. Does anyone have idea why the Facebook now admitted the censorship and government manipulation? đź’­

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The author is:

Senior Economics Columnist for Epoch Times

In case anybody is curious about his credibility.

And what is Epoch Time? I've used 2 search engines (QWANT and Google) and all I get is something about Unix time stamps.
That said, the article reeks of conspiracy nut.

The Epoch Times is a publication from Falun Gong. Falun Gong is a Chinese cult equivalent to The Church of Scientology.

What an absolute shit post.

Might as well ask "Have you stopped molesting goats?"

When we already engaging in discussion, what exactly about censorship of communication technology is shit post?

Because comparing preventing people from mass distributing lies that literally killed people to censorship for propaganda is horseshit.

That's for sure interesting opinion.

The reason there was no room for intelligent debate on exactly where to draw the line on COVID policy is because the space was absolutely flooded with public figures turning a highly contagious, deadly pandemic into an idiotic political debate and going to COVID parties for fucking fun while hospitals didn't have enough beds to treat people.

Yes, sometimes in an actual emergency, the government needs to take command to keep people from dying. It's the same premise as setting up roadblocks and making highways single direction evacuation routes during a hurricane, just on a longer timescale because way more jackasses decided it would be fun not to take very basic precautions. Sometimes, there aren't two legitimately valid sides.

The people saying for plebs to stay home were he ones doing the parties tho. So clearly they did not believe the threat personally.

Maybe where you lived.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2022/04/09/gridiron-covid-pelosi-bowser-garland/

Why did Zuckerberg choose now to make this announcement and publicly reveal the inside play?

There's actually a tidbit that the author notes that points at the obvious reason for it.

In his letter to Congressional investigators, he flat-out said what everyone else has been saying for years now.

In 2021, senior officials from the Biden Administration, including the White House, repeatedly pressured our teams for months to censor certain COVID-19 content...

The author then goes on to say though:

A few clarifications. The censorship began much earlier than that, from March 2020 at the very least if not earlier.

What's significant about that? Trump was president then.

So Zuckerberg is rather obviously trying to pin entirely on the Biden administration a set of policies that were already in place under Trump.

To what end? Obviously to do the same thing he did in 2016 and 2020 - to overtly promote Trump.

This particular one certainly not coincidentally plays into the whole Republican narrative that the Democrats are oppressive and dishonest, which in turn is meant to provide a context for their intention to dispute the election results when Trump loses. Zuckerberg is simply doing his part to further that narrative.

That’s an interesting take I don’t see the line of thought on. If he’s trying to say “Biden wanted this but Trump already started it” that tells me BOTH parties requested it. Hence, if you don’t like Biden because of this, you don’t want Trump either. And of course, vice versa. In short, this policy is not unique to either party or administration.

Your last paragraph seems to be, therefore backwards. I get a lot of “if you think the democrats are oppressive, you don’t know the republicans… they’re the ones who actually started this request first.

Honestly, I don’t really see this as able to sway anyone politically anyway. The real reason for all of this extra that Zuck brought it up, is simply to SEEM like he’s being transparent and open to win favor with the people and coming administration.

If he’s trying to say “Biden wanted this but Trump already started it”

Which "he?"

Zuckerberg blames it exclusively and entirely on the Biden administration.

that tells me BOTH parties requested it. Hence, if you don’t like Biden because of this, you don’t want Trump either. And of course, vice versa. In short, this policy is not unique to either party or administration.

Exactly, but that's explicitly not what Zuckerberg is saying. He's saying that it was entirely and exclusively Biden, which is a lie.

I love how he just uncritically and with absolute credulity accepts excerpts from a letter written by Zuck with no supporting evidence, no examples of what "pressure" looked like, etc.

I can't believe these people are still so butt hurt about the perfectly reasonable actions taken by the US and State governments and governments worldwide in response to a once in a century global respiratory DEADLY pandemic that killed millions and millions of humans.

And as far as FB (and other social media) goes, fuck em. And fuck the users. Types of speech can be illegal. Defamation (lying about someone) and false advertising (lying about a product or service) can be illegal even though it's definitely speech. These have "lying" in common, which to me implies there must be something about lying (specifically misrepresenting reality) that weakens typical 1st Amendment protections.

But it's clear what this guy is most sad about is the traffic he got while his article about Woodstock going on during a lull in the comparatively mild pandemic that was "active" at the time (no meaningful H3N2 activity in the US at the time) went away when FB rightly changed the algorithm to not boost his stupid irrelevant "analysis."

But people like the writer of this article are either too addled by conspiracy galaxy brain or too committed to lying for money to care that they could really hurt people with their bullshit.

This guy needs to go to something less harmful like selling homeopathic tinctures or lying about the moon landing or flat earth or something.

Rightly mean after request from Biden administration?

Do you think "The Honorable Jim Jordan" regrets not being more outspoken when his buddy was raping kids?

I am interested, how it relates to Mark Zuckerberg censorship of Facebook content on behalf of government?

This is Zuck's characterisation. No direct quotes. No attachments (that I've seen). He calls it pressure. He says they wanted to censor "satire & humor." In fact this BS letter is what the original article quoted.

I like how this has a -19 score and yet it’s still being served up to me for some reason.

Showed up for me at -41.

The Lemmy default algorithm isn't great.

Because he can see the writing on the wall. He's going to act as though he's always been the good guy too, wait and see.

I have the same feeling, the wave have shifted.