Mark Zuckerberg defends Meta’s latest pivot in three-hour Joe Rogan interview

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg on Friday defended Meta’s decision to roll back its content moderation policies Joe Rogan’s podcast appearance. Zuckerberg faced widespread criticism for the decision, including From the employees of his own company.

“Maybe it depends on who you ask,” Zuckerberg said when asked how the Metar updates have been received.

D The main update meta announced this week It was that it was ending its independent fact-checker program and replacing it with a community notes program similar to X. This means Facebook, Instagram and Threads will rely more on community members to flag misinformation. The company also said it will raise thresholds for its automated content filters. This means less bad posts on Meta’s platform will be automatically removed, while less good posts will be removed by mistake. And the meta didn’t announce this, but It is said to be dropping its largest DEI effort.

In a wide-ranging, candid conversation that lasted nearly three hours, Zuckerberg explained why he’s pivoting his social media platforms back to, he says, their roots of free expression.

“You only start one of these companies if you believe in giving people a voice,” says the Mater CEO. “The whole point of social media is basically to empower people to share what they want. It goes back to our core mission to empower people to share and make the world more open and connected.”

It is impossible to ignore this decision time. Zuckerberg announced the changes days before Donald Trump’s inauguration. Previously elected president Claims Mater CEO conspired against him in 2020 electionsAnd Zuckerberg reportedly threatened to jail her if she ever did it again.

When it comes to Trump, Zuckerberg said he’s optimistic enough about the incoming president because he “just wants America to win.” The CEO noted how important it is to have a government that protects American tech companies abroad, apparently citing The European Union has faced meta-scrutiny.

However, Zuckerberg claimed that the timing of these changes was purely coincidental and that there is never a good time for major content moderation changes. In fact, Mater’s CEO says these changes have been a long time coming.

“I’ve been concerned from the beginning about making these kinds of decisions about what’s true in the world,” Zuckerberg said. “It’s a crazy position for the billions of people using your service.”

In the past decade, Matter’s CEO says people have started pushing for norm-based censorship on its platforms. He cites two events in particular where this came to mind: the 2016 election for US president and the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.

Zuckerberg said the Biden administration pressured them to withdraw the facts. The Meta CEO said some of the concerns about vaccine side effects that Meta brushed off at the time shouldn’t be dismissed as misinformation.

The Meta CEO told Rogan that X and Twitter have “done better than us” in terms of content moderation, noting how his platforms will adopt the community notes feature. Notably, Some advertisers have abandoned X in recent years due to its content moderation policiesAn exit that is X is now challenging in court as collusion.

Rogan and Zuckerberg veered from content moderation during Friday’s episode to a wide range of topics, including jiu-jitsu, AI, and broader changes in American culture.

Mater’s CEO says he sees a sea change happening, where people trust government officials and less established media. In their place, social media creators and podcast hosts, like Rogan himself, are gaining influence and credibility.

This sentiment is reflected in recent changes to Meta’s platform news, where the company briefly Stop broadcasting news or political content All in all, however, Zuckerberg indicated this week that it would Fez returns to this political content In its promotional algorithms.

At another point, Zuckerberg noted how Western society, and corporate America in particular, has become “passive” and “neutral.” He defended the need for more male presence in the country and its businesses.

Several times throughout the podcast, Zuckerberg suggests that he’s pushed the media too far over the past 10 years and blamed it on things beyond his control. This isn’t the first time Zuckerberg has said Meta will take less responsibility Going forward for everything bad on his platform. However, he was more outspoken and upbeat than ever in Friday’s conversation.

“We came to this point where there were things you couldn’t say [on our platforms] Which was mainstream discourse,” Zuckerberg said, noting how Meta has silenced conservative voices.

The meta CEO points out how Trump’s nominee for defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, has repeatedly done Said that women should not be allowed to serve in combat roles. Zuckerberg said that under Meta’s previous content moderation rules, these comments would not have been allowed because they excluded a protected class of people. Under Meta’s new policy, those comments will be fine, Zuckerberg said.

“If it’s okay to say it on the floor of Congress, you’re probably going to be able to debate it on social media,” he said.

Regarding Dana White, the Mater CEO said he added the UFC president to his board of directors because of his entrepreneurial leadership and more people with a “strong backbone” in his company.

“We have a lot of governments and people around the world putting a lot of pressure on our company and we need some strong people who are going to advise us on how to handle these situations,” Zuckerberg said in White.