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JA Westenberg

Remember that kid in high school who would suddenly discover a deep passion for whatever music the popular crowd was into that week?

Meta is essentially that kid, except instead of switching between pop-punk and indie rock, they’re pivoting between political ideologies with billion-dollar implications.

The surprise over Meta’s rightward pivot — from hiring Dana White (who has a history of domestic violence) to quietly dismantling fact-checking programs — reveals a blindness in progressive thinking.

Don’t get me wrong; Dana White is an appalling figure and Meta’s obsequiousness in the face of moral bankruptcy is distasteful.

But the surprising part is that any of this has come as a surprise.
It’s as if progressives genuinely believed Meta’s previous embrace of progressive causes reflected conviction rather than careful calculation.

Imagine an alternate 2025 where Kamala Harris won the presidency. Would Meta be hiring conservative pundits and scaling back content moderation? Of course not.

They’d be announcing expansive DEI initiatives, hosting climate change awareness campaigns, and Mark Zuckerberg would probably be spotted wearing a “The Future is Female” t-shirt while doing his morning surfing routine.

This isn’t cynicism on my part — it’s pattern recognition.

Meta’s behavior follows a simple path:
• Detect where power is concentrated
• Align with that power
• Profit

It’s not news that Meta does this — it’s news that anyone ever expected different.

Corporations of this scale don’t have ideologies; they have quarterly earnings targets. The progressive policies Meta championed in the past weren’t expressions of moral conviction — they were expressions of META stock price optimization.

The current conservative tilt isn’t betrayal any more than a weathervane “betrays” the west wind by pointing east when the wind changes. Meta is simply doing what Meta has always done: following the money.

When the political winds inevitably shift back toward progressivism (as American political cycles suggest they will), Meta will pivot too. They’ll release statements about “recommitting to our values” and “listening to our community.”

Progressives will celebrate. LinkedIn will flood with rainbow logos. And nothing fundamental will have changed.

This is the core trap: mistaking algorithmic behavior for moral behavior. Meta isn’t moral or immoral — it’s amoral. Expecting ethical consistency from Meta is like expecting ethical consistency from a calculator. It’s category error all the way down.

You can argue back and forth about whether corporations have a responsibility to become moral agents. I can certainly argue that aligning with a political force intent on trashing the planet is hardly an intelligent strategy for Meta’s long-term shareholder value.

But the reality is — this is what we’ve got. Grey faced corporations alternating between rainbow body paint and the lash.

The true lesson here isn’t about Meta at all — it’s about the stories we tell ourselves about corporations. When they align with our values, we want to believe they share our convictions. But they don’t share convictions — they share incentives.

The next time Meta (or any tech giant) makes a grand gesture toward progressive causes, remember this moment. Remember that the same algorithm that made them turn right will make them turn left again. The weathervane hasn’t developed a conscience — it’s just detected a new wind.

And maybe, just maybe, we can finally stop being surprised when corporations act like corporations.

That is to say, moral vacuums with an affinity for politically themed cosplay.

@Daojoan I agree with all you just said, however it feels the first time corpos openly bend a knee to aggressive political posture, instead of relegating it to the PR department.
I know context matters as well, majority of these corpos have made incredibly wasteful bets and will see reckoning soon, so boards and CEOs are playing survival there.

@Daojoan If a megacorp perceived that the prevailing political wind was threatening to blow away democracy and possibly the habitability of the planet, might we then reasonably expect it to take a stand?

@simoncarswell Megacorps _are_ the wind blowing away democracy and feeding the fire which consumes the planet, I'm afraid. @Daojoan

@simoncarswell @Daojoan not if they think they can make a buck by leaning into the destruction of our society. Megacorps do not care about the planet, democracy or you, even when our very existence is on the line; there is only one thing they care about — money.

@nickesc @Daojoan In theory, capitalism can work well if:
1. Powerful competition authorities prevent monopolies & oligopolies happening
2. Powerful regulators enforce rules to prevent the various bad things that would happen if profit alone were to drive everything.
3. Ideally, corporations have corporate social responsibility policies, which they follow.

@Daojoan I wouldn't be surprised if Zuck didn't also hope daddy Trump would do something against the EU so they can spy better there.

@Daojoan I agree that many corps switch to follow the money, but there is still a lot of money to be made for those corporations that keep “catering” to liberals. However, I do think Meta switched because they didn’t like where the policies for AI, free speech vs misinformation, privacy, and anti-trust were going. Remember Cambridge Analytica? The lawsuits are not over and there are others.

cnbc.com/2025/01/07/lina-khan-

apnews.com/article/supreme-cou

CNBCFTC Chair Khan hopes Amazon, Facebook won't get 'sweetheart deal' from Trump in antitrust casesLina Khan, who was tapped by President Joe Biden to lead the FTC, is set to be replaced by President-elect Donald Trump's pick Andrew Ferguson.

@Daojoan - all of this, by the way, is also why it's so completely tonedeaf at best for @eff to not only comment on the most recent Meta pablum, but even take it at face value. It's not unlike watching a video of a dog barking that someone has overlaid the sound of a duck quacking, and declaring that the animal featured in the video is a duck.

@Daojoan Zuckerberg has never ever been left or progressive.

@Daojoan I fear many people and corporations act with no long -term strategies, only continual adaptation to the present, hoping their competitors do worse, and to receive some help in case of disaster
It's modernity, technology and economics (and shareholders) who drive us to this behaviour
And state, the one that should look at long term consequences, has being dismantled from Reagan till today

@Daojoan Our job is to ensure they won't because they'll be dead by then. Make this turn towards offering up tutorials on recommended types of hate speech fatal to the company.

@dalias @Daojoan I agree that Meta may well end up destroying itself, but the larger point is that corporations paint themselves in the most politically expedient colors. They have no values or commitments to anything other than profit. Any statements telling us that they do are simply marketing.

@Daojoan In this sense, they are like newspapers in the 1980s and 1990s which ‘endorsed’ whichever political party they thought would win!

@Daojoan In de tijd van WOII heette dat "ras aanpas".

Perhaps that's why none of this surprises me. I'm old enough to remember the debate over so-called "constructive engagement" with apartheid-era South Africa. Business never initiates positive social change, it only ever follows an incentive gradient, like a microorganism following a concentration gradient via chemotaxis.

@Daojoan
Thank you for your post.
Meta is completely right wing. Boycott Meta.

Peace

@Daojoan What would actually happen is Kamala would dismantel the DEI initiatives herself as a gift to the right. I agree with this analysis otherwise.

@Daojoan maybe you're right
But I suspect that many "progressives" have discovered that they feel good following their self-interest only and just an appearance of unselfishness, and maybe not all, but many, feel good with that, consciously

@Daojoan I'm legitimately curious who is surprised by this? Admittedly, I have a bubble so it's entirely possible I'd miss the mainstream reaction here, but it's also I think an important thing to still question.

@Daojoan projection is often pointed out in the actions of conservatives. But in reality it’s just human. Ascribing personal motivations to corporations is the reason we’re in this mess. Business has 0 morals, profit alone

@Daojoan This explains the gangsta rap gold chain.

@Daojoan Yeah, pretty much. Most people will go whichever way the prevailing wind seems to be blowing. Especially if they are part of the wealthy “establishment” (this tendency predates capitalism).