New year, new meta. It looks like the tech giant is undergoing some kind of MAGA transformation for the start of 2025.
Mark Zuckerberg’s conglomerate announced Thursday that Joel Kaplan, vice president of global policy, will replace Nick Clegg as its chief international affairs officer.
“I have come to the conclusion that now is the appropriate time to step down from my role as Meta’s global president,” Clegg said in a statement Thursday.
With Kaplan’s elevation, Mehta is likely to take a more Republican approach to global policy as Donald Trump prepares for a second presidential term. (Mr Clegg, by contrast, was a former leader of Britain’s centre-left Liberal Democratic Party.)
Kaplan, who caused controversy in 2018 by appearing as a supporter at Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearing, was a member of the content moderators, which aimed to stop misinformation and hate speech, during his time at Meta. He has worked hard to protect the right from rationing efforts.
When Kaplan was first hired in 2011, the conventional wisdom was that Facebook was making the move to shore up its support with Republicans. In a sense, this was the beginning of a shift to the right at Facebook (now Meta), which over time saw conservatives ascend to top leadership positions, as well as on Instagram and WhatsApp, platforms owned by Meta. has included the spread of right-wing extremism and misinformation. And even Zuckerberg’s own public statement was welcomed by the MAGA movement. For example, he called President Trump “disgusting” for his response to the assassination attempt in July, and in 2021 he allegedly censored conservative “humor and satire” on his social media networks. He expressed regret.
It’s important to consider the potential motivations for Zuckerberg and his company to take a more MAGA-friendly approach. Two things in particular come to mind for me. First, as I wrote in 2022, Zuckerberg is focused on making Meta the leader in virtual reality development through the creation of a “metaverse.” Putting a Republican in charge of global policy ahead of Trump’s return to the White House could be seen as one way to potentially avoid unwanted surveillance or regulatory measures that could hinder that goal. .
Another thing that comes to mind is Trump’s threat to Zuckerberg. That includes an ominous statement suggesting that the Meta leader could “spend the rest of his life in prison” for “conspiracy” against Trump. That alone is enough to make one suspect that Meta’s rightward shift is inspired, at least in part, by the company’s CEO’s desire to avoid President Trump’s personal wrath. After all, Mr. Zuckerberg was one of several Silicon Valley leaders to visit Mar-a-Lago after Mr. Trump’s election victory. And Meta, along with other tech giants including Amazon and OpenAI, contributed $1 million to President Trump’s inaugural fund. (Meta, then known as Facebook Inc., did not donate to either Trump’s first inaugural fund or Biden’s fund in 2021.)
So it seemed like Zuckerberg was already bracing himself and Meta for Trump’s second term. And with Kaplan leading global policy, the company appears poised to take a looser approach to misinformation and content management.
