5 ms·

Mark Zuckerberg: This Man Is a Coward

205 points by doener 2y ago

spratzt 2y ago
Frankly, these words are too kind.
Demlmlm 2y ago
[dead]
arghandugh 2y ago
His little masc outfits only amplify his fundamental bitchness. It’s so embarrassing to watch.
timewizard 2y ago
> This man is a coward. This man is a CEO. If you mistook him as something else then you simply fell victim to clever marketing. (See: Elon Musk) > Power corrupts, but cowardice corrupts more completely. What are they cowarding from? Could it not be power itself? Perhaps your analysis is too focused on the object of your anger and has devolved into printed bile. As a result it lacks any forward value.
- rajup 2y ago
  I don't understand. CEOs cannot be considered cowards?
  - root_axis 2y ago
    Their point is that cowardice isn't necessary to explain the obvious. He's a CEO, he's going to do what's most profitable. "Cowardice" suggests that if he were more brave he would sacrifice profit on the basis of some principle, but as a CEO principle was never part of the equation to begin with.
- jwpapi 2y ago
  Thank you! At these stakes you can expect anyone to do what they believe is making them the most amount of money.
- chrisulloa 2y ago
  you have to wonder if there's a limit to the things people, companies, CEOs, shareholders will do to satiate their greed if only for the sake of the public good
  - sumeno 2y ago
    there are limits to the things some people will do to satiate their greed, but if you are a billionaire you've already demonstrated there is not
EdwardDiego 2y ago
You kinda think that someone who is in favour of "masculine energy" would, you know, choose to not bend the knee.
- p3rls 2y ago
  His masculine energy is about as real as Musk's gaming skillz
rajup 2y ago
Something something "capitalism responsibility to shareholders" something
lunarmony 2y ago
Real strength isn't talking about masculinity. It's taking responsibility for your team's actions, and sticking to your principles even when it hurts your profits.
- toomuchtodo 2y ago
  Character is strength observed.
diamondfist25 2y ago
[flagged]
perfmode 2y ago
The author dismisses Zuckerberg’s perspective, assuming cowardice and self-interest behind his actions while conflating multiple issues into a simplistic narrative of moral failure. While I am critical of Zuckerberg, the approach relies on petty rants rather than constructive analysis. And I can't really get onboard with such an approach.
- whatshisface 2y ago
  Meta supported the previous administration's social media hopes through directed platform bias, and they're clearly going to support the next one. I hope this gives all the people who supported it the last time an opportunity to think about how convenience shifts with the changing of power, unlike the principles of a free society.
whatshisface 2y ago
There really should be no relationship between the CEO of a social media company and the NIH budget. Out of all criticisms that is one that should not be answered with change...
pestatije 2y ago
Please change that title.
kittikitti 2y ago
I dislike Zuck but starting off with how we was silent on the NIH isn't the strongest point and it's a disservice to the countless other things Zuck gets wrong. PETA is against the NIH and I see no reason to support the existing healthcare infrastructure. https://headlines.peta.org/nih/ https://headlines.peta.org/nih/
VectorLock 2y ago
>a complete surrender of principles at Meta Charitable to assume those "principles" weren't performative if they can be discarded so easily. Lets not forget this product was developed as a mechanism to skeeze on college girls.
kasey_junk 2y ago
It has been extremely instructive to watch the worlds richest people line up to kiss the ring of the new administration. I hope people remember this in the future when they talk about the rich controlling our government and the population being just along for the ride.
- sho_hn 2y ago
  As a European observer, it's been an interesting lesson in how much power and sway the US presidency is invested with, despite ostensibly existing in a system that is less centralized and puts more power (and elected offices) at the state level than our flavor of democracies. You may not be able to bend the will of state officials, but if you can bend the will of national-level companies this easily, "the Feds" are effectively a much larger operation than it otherwise would be.
  - tomrod 2y ago
    Since the 1950s, more and more power has been claimed by the executive, sometimes as a consequence of legislature dysfunction, more often by unchecked supremacy clause execution. The US was envisioned to look a lot more like the EU. The US Civil War required a stronger federal response, and unfortunately reconstruction failed to sufficiently address the primary economic differences in industrialization, resulting in deep geographical divides. Further propaganda machines set up by one party due to embarrassment over Nixon's resignation has resulted in one effective party; the other is primarily controlled by corporations.
    - readthenotes1 2y ago
      "more often by unchecked supremacy clause execution." Which is also quite often legistrature dysfunction.
  - 2muchcoffeeman 2y ago
    There’s always been disgusting amounts of money involved with US presidential elections. Its just never been so blatant. Their whole system is not really geared towards a fair election. Gerrymandering, millions of dollars in political donations, optional voting and you don’t need to give time to employees to vote, voting system specifically designed to maintain a duopoly.
tomrod 2y ago
It is a shame this was flagged. This is a conversation that is needed. Culling all political discussion is not what today's hackers need.
- sumeno 2y ago
  It's not surprising when you consider HN is full of temporarily embarrassed tech billionaires
  - 2muchcoffeeman 2y ago
    No one should be ashamed of being rich. What grates me is that these people have ginormous amounts of FU money and don’t exercise it. They just horde it and be more sociopathic.
    - pragmatic 2y ago
      Parent is referring to the Steinbeck quote.
  - dang 2y ago
    "Please don't sneer, including at the rest of the community." It's reliably a marker of bad comments and worse threads. Also, please "Omit internet tropes." Both from https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- mclightning 2y ago
  I came here to write this will get flagged, and I was already too late. We need a new "HackerNews"
  - ThrowawayTestr 2y ago
    Check out the hackernews sub on rdrama.net
    - 2y ago
bawolff 2y ago
Seems kind of a bit much. I don't know what mark's true beliefs are. For all i know maybe his actions are ernest. I feel we need more than this to subscribe him a coward. Someone doing something you disagree with, or even being straight up evil, is not the same thing as being a coward.
- kreyenborgi 2y ago
  He did the exact opposite when it was trendy to do the opposite. Did his beliefs change so conveniently?
  - ThrowawayR2 2y ago
    "Beliefs"? Classic binary "if you're not with us, you're against us" thinking. Believe it or not, a lot of people didn't really give a hoot about either side of the culture wars squabbling and just went with the flow.
    - pixxel 2y ago
      > just went with the flow Be better. Go against the flow.
      - ThrowawayR2 2y ago
        The public went against the flow at the voting booths in 2024: "Big voter turnout this year benefited Republicans, contradicting conventional political wisdom" (https://apnews.com/article/election-2024-voter-turnout-republicans-trump-harris-7ef18c115c8e1e76210820e0146bc3a5 https://apnews.com/article/election-2024-voter-turnout-repub...). Didn't work out too well, did it? Sometimes it's smarter to let sleeping dogs lie.
  - bawolff 2y ago
    Maybe when it was trendy he heard some convincing arguments one way, and now that trends shifted, he was convinced to go to the other side. Maybe he doesn't give a shit at all and is going with the flow. None of this particulary feels like cowardice. Honestly, y'all should stop caring what mark thinks and start caring about the average american. Trump isn't scary because a couple of billionaires are on his side. He's scary because a majority of americans are on his side.
legitster 2y ago
Agreed with the cowardice. But I think it worked both ways. It was pretty clear that Facebook (and a lot of other industries) also took on a lot of practices that they clearly didn't believe in either. DEI was taken up performatively for political reasons. We cannot be upset when it is removed performatively for political reason. And we have to be honest that these programs were largely failures. Fact checking especially. Even performatively, these companies took on pretty big responsibilities, only garnered more criticism and controversy, gained nothing, and after years of plugging away had no light at the end of the tunnel.
- grajaganDev 2y ago
  Sandberg was pushing DEI long before 2020. And I don't think she was being performative. Agreed about the cringe cowardice.
- ffsm8 2y ago
  > Fact checking especially It's very confusing to me that pretty much nobody takes what Zuck said in that interview at face value. It's entirely possible he thought that doing fact checks is a good approach in the context of the beginning of Corona - and then find out how borderline impossible such an approach is in practice and consequently change his opinion on doing it...
- davidguetta 2y ago
  I mean it's also pretty arrogant and/or delusional to say that in his place, as a businessman, you would have been making a big stand against an entire US presidential administration.. Entities with that kind of attitude usually don't grow to the size facebook is. The biden administration using backchannels to pressure social media instead of being transparent about it are the one to MAINLY criticize. Zuckerberg is just another businessman speaking in whatever press relases will be best at that moment, but obeyed people he kinda HAD to obey at the end of the day. In general when the men with guns (here the law) speak, you listen
leopinh 2y ago
[dead]
LeroyRaz 2y ago
A poorly conceived and generic article. If he has a malignancy (if), it is greed not fear. And with that fact clear, the whole article makes no sense.
- quantified 2y ago
  I missed the accusation of malignancy. Malignancy and cowardice will lead to the same outcome when courage is called for. And MZ is simply greedy and afraid of losing what he's got, which is four orders of magnitude (at least) more than basically everyone else involved.
- amai 2y ago
  Greed leads to cowardice.
- grahamj 2y ago
  The two are not mutually exclusive.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
kreyenborgi 2y ago
> All that power, all those resources, all that potential influence - and he uses it to make himself smaller This is what I find most incomprehensible. These people really do have the power to do whatever they want and still have enough money to retire comfortably a thousand times over. And this is what they choose to do.
- palata 2y ago
  Insecure narcissists. Those guys had no friends before being rich, and they seem to have a deep need to feel loved. Because they don't know what it means to have actual friends, they think whatever they pay or enforce with money counts. It doesn't, they are just rich losers.
867-5309 2y ago
[flagged]
- wswope 2y ago
  [flagged]
- sumeno 2y ago
  People other than me exist so this doesn't really work In the same way that me not driving drunk doesn't protect me from drunk drivers
GeneralMayhem 2y ago
Also relevant: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/jan/16/i-knew-one-day-id-have-to-watch-powerful-men-burn-the-world-down-i-just-didnt-expect-them-to-be-such-losers https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/jan/16/i-knew.... It's incredible, really. I thought the main point of being a billionaire was independence. "Fuck-you money" taken to the extreme. You've "won" society, now do whatever you want. Make things better for humanity by funding novel research. Or sit in a cave and build the best orgasm machine ever. Whatever. I think Larry and Sergey have the right idea, but in very different ways: Larry has completely disappeared to go live on a private island, and Sergey gets to be as weird as he wants and still pops in to work on whatever tech project he finds interesting. I don't think having billionaires who live completely separately is a good thing for society, but those responses at least make sense to me. Zuckerberg became rich and famous for being a smart guy who didn't do the bullshit that other people wanted him to. Remember "move fast and break things"? And now instead... he (and Musk, but he's probably a true believer; and a number of others, but to lesser extents) want to... kowtow and suck up to a weak, blithering idiot? Profess the value of caveman-tier "masculinity" ideology? Never mind how obviously contradictory it is to believe in both "men should be strong" and "Donald Trump is what we should want in a man" - what is the point? Why is this what he wants to do with his power and wealth?
- palata 2y ago
  > Zuckerberg became rich and famous for being a smart guy who didn't do the bullshit that other people wanted him to. I disagree. He became rich for being in the right place at the right time. He became famous because he became rich.
- jaybrendansmith 2y ago
  It's really showing his deep lack of character; Aaron Sorkin got him dead on. He's always done the most convenient, values-free act possible from the get-go.
carlosdp 2y ago
Idk, this article assumes that the company before the recent changes reflected his beliefs of how companies should be run. But the way I see it, it's pretty clear he disagreed with a lot of it, and just felt too much pressure (internal from employees, external from the media) to not fall in line. Does no one remember that in the 2010s, Zuck went around trying to advocate against the calls for censoring "disinformation", arguing free speech shouldn't be regulated by a company? These types of views aren't new for him, they were aggressively suppressed by the press which published thousands of articles calling his ideas anything from "reckless" to "violent."[1][2] At some point, he gave in, in part because the new administration very much agreed with the media on this (and again, many of Meta's employees). But now he has the political cover to run things the way he actually wants to, which we can see from his public remarks years ago. So, you can I guess call him a "coward," but it would be misinformed, in my opinion, to claim he's a coward because he's seemingly kowtowing to the Trump people in the changes he's making. On the contrary, if anything he was a being a coward before by not following through on his true convictions! (fwiw, I don't agree any of this is cowardice. It's extremely difficult to run a company at that scale and try to keep everyone happy, and he's only human at the end of the day. The author simply disagrees with his currently expressed opinions. If he agreed, she might be calling him a hero, though probably not. I also think laying the NIH stuff at his feet is a huge non-sequitor. Zuck has nothing to do with any of that, idk what she's expecting he's supposed to do about it?) [1] https://www.cnbc.com/2019/10/18/mark-zuckerberg-georgetown-speech-history-isnt-on-facebooks-side.html https://www.cnbc.com/2019/10/18/mark-zuckerberg-georgetown-s... [2] https://www.google.com/search?q=mark+zuckerberg+tour+talking+about+free+speech+in+2010s&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8 https://www.google.com/search?q=mark+zuckerberg+tour+talking...
- slibhb 2y ago
  > Does no one remember that in the 2010s, Zuck went around trying to advocate against the calls for censoring "disinformation", arguing free speech shouldn't be regulated by a company? Nope! I remember it too. It was impressive at the time. All the CEOs standing in line acting like there's no problem with a ministry of truth approach, and Mark was the only one who said the obviously correct thing. I've liked him since then.
tsukasagenesis 2y ago
it's all fun to call it now coward when he rollback all his fake news/DEI stuff, but when he put it for biden administration, it was all for better. go figure.
slibhb 2y ago
Hating Mark Zuckerberg is like a barometer for someone having no mind of their own. We've been told that Mark was responisble for Trump in 2016 and teenagers having low esteeem. It's so laughable. He seems like a fine guy to me. His quasi-embrace of Trump reflects the wider public realizing that, first, Trump has some plus-sides (dismantling DEI is one of them). And second, the whole "resistance" thing really didn't pay off. I didn't vote for him, but he's president, and moping about it isn't useful. Zuckerberg and people's attitude towards him also represents progressives quite nicely, especially in their relationships with tech. Turns out "we hate you so much, you are awful and evil" is a good way to drive people away. edit - I will also say that Mark was the only tech CEO who impressed me in front of Congress, when he pushed back on the whole misinfo/disinfo craze.
hackerbeat 2y ago
Trump and his sleazy tech bros will go down in history as the gravediggers of democracy.
- Sparyjerry 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - tzs 2y ago
    Democrats are not against voter ID if voter ID is free and easy to obtain for every person who is legally entitled to vote. And by "free" I don't mean that there is just no fee charged by the agency that issues the ID. I mean that it also shouldn't require documentation that cannot be obtained for free. There are plenty of links in this comment [1] with details on how many Americans who are legally entitled to vote lack ID and why it is difficult for many to obtain it. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42116609 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42116609
    - Sparyjerry 2y ago
      California democrats literally made it illegal to show ID in elections. Not just "Voter ID" but literally driver licenses.
      - tzs 2y ago
        Are you thinking of this [1]? [1] https://perkinscoie.com/insights/update/new-california-law-prohibits-localities-imposing-their-own-voter-id-requirements https://perkinscoie.com/insights/update/new-california-law-p...
outlore 2y ago
when you take the king’s shilling you must do his killing
mclightning 2y ago
[flagged]
dwaltrip 2y ago
Good recent Search Engine podcast episode on zuck and his changes over the years: https://open.spotify.com/episode/3Pvsvk6fGJa1BqnPGsske9?si=gRPvyWEKSeuLSZjmrTusTg https://open.spotify.com/episode/3Pvsvk6fGJa1BqnPGsske9?si=g...
anal_reactor 2y ago
I find it shocking how many otherwise intelligent people drank the kool-aid and believed that businesses have some mission bigger than making money, and salesmen tell the truth rather than whatever almost-lie gets the deal done. On top of that, it is very amusing to see people throw tantrums over being reminded that there exists a world and culture outside of their own bubble. The ignorance of California's upper-middle-class just couldn't last forever, and it had to come crashing down at some point.
SavageBeast 2y ago
Perhaps the opposite is true: Maybe Zuck found the courage to stand up for what he's come to believe in as he's matured as a person and a leader. Maybe what we're seeing now is a Zuck thats willing to say No More. Its seems rational that what we're seeing is just exactly that and that he actively wishes to be aligned with the policies of the new administration as he sees merit in their approach and ideas.
1vuio0pswjnm7 2y ago
https://nitter.poast.org/TheMarcitect/status/1878063172252586430 https://nitter.poast.org/TheMarcitect/status/187806317225258... https://nitter.poast.org/mtgilchrist/status/1877825066588672028 https://nitter.poast.org/mtgilchrist/status/1877825066588672... https://nitter.poast.org/MaryConner62814/status/1877800765286146506 https://nitter.poast.org/MaryConner62814/status/187780076528...
amai 2y ago
Move fast and break things no more. Bow fast and say yes to all demands of our new overlords is the new motto of Meta.

205 points by doener 2y ago

spratzt 2y ago

Frankly, these words are too kind.

Demlmlm 2y ago

[dead]

arghandugh 2y ago

His little masc outfits only amplify his fundamental bitchness. It’s so embarrassing to watch.

timewizard 2y ago

> This man is a coward. This man is a CEO. If you mistook him as something else then you simply fell victim to clever marketing. (See: Elon Musk) > Power corrupts, but cowardice corrupts more completely. What are they cowarding from? Could it not be power itself? Perhaps your analysis is too focused on the object of your anger and has devolved into printed bile. As a result it lacks any forward value.

rajup 2y ago
I don't understand. CEOs cannot be considered cowards?
- root_axis 2y ago
  Their point is that cowardice isn't necessary to explain the obvious. He's a CEO, he's going to do what's most profitable. "Cowardice" suggests that if he were more brave he would sacrifice profit on the basis of some principle, but as a CEO principle was never part of the equation to begin with.
jwpapi 2y ago
Thank you! At these stakes you can expect anyone to do what they believe is making them the most amount of money.
chrisulloa 2y ago
you have to wonder if there's a limit to the things people, companies, CEOs, shareholders will do to satiate their greed if only for the sake of the public good
- sumeno 2y ago
  there are limits to the things some people will do to satiate their greed, but if you are a billionaire you've already demonstrated there is not

EdwardDiego 2y ago

You kinda think that someone who is in favour of "masculine energy" would, you know, choose to not bend the knee.

p3rls 2y ago
His masculine energy is about as real as Musk's gaming skillz

rajup 2y ago

Something something "capitalism responsibility to shareholders" something

lunarmony 2y ago

Real strength isn't talking about masculinity. It's taking responsibility for your team's actions, and sticking to your principles even when it hurts your profits.

toomuchtodo 2y ago
Character is strength observed.

diamondfist25 2y ago

[flagged]

perfmode 2y ago

The author dismisses Zuckerberg’s perspective, assuming cowardice and self-interest behind his actions while conflating multiple issues into a simplistic narrative of moral failure. While I am critical of Zuckerberg, the approach relies on petty rants rather than constructive analysis. And I can't really get onboard with such an approach.

whatshisface 2y ago
Meta supported the previous administration's social media hopes through directed platform bias, and they're clearly going to support the next one. I hope this gives all the people who supported it the last time an opportunity to think about how convenience shifts with the changing of power, unlike the principles of a free society.

whatshisface 2y ago

There really should be no relationship between the CEO of a social media company and the NIH budget. Out of all criticisms that is one that should not be answered with change...

pestatije 2y ago

Please change that title.

kittikitti 2y ago

I dislike Zuck but starting off with how we was silent on the NIH isn't the strongest point and it's a disservice to the countless other things Zuck gets wrong. PETA is against the NIH and I see no reason to support the existing healthcare infrastructure. https://headlines.peta.org/nih/ https://headlines.peta.org/nih/

VectorLock 2y ago

>a complete surrender of principles at Meta Charitable to assume those "principles" weren't performative if they can be discarded so easily. Lets not forget this product was developed as a mechanism to skeeze on college girls.

kasey_junk 2y ago

It has been extremely instructive to watch the worlds richest people line up to kiss the ring of the new administration. I hope people remember this in the future when they talk about the rich controlling our government and the population being just along for the ride.

sho_hn 2y ago
As a European observer, it's been an interesting lesson in how much power and sway the US presidency is invested with, despite ostensibly existing in a system that is less centralized and puts more power (and elected offices) at the state level than our flavor of democracies. You may not be able to bend the will of state officials, but if you can bend the will of national-level companies this easily, "the Feds" are effectively a much larger operation than it otherwise would be.
- tomrod 2y ago
  Since the 1950s, more and more power has been claimed by the executive, sometimes as a consequence of legislature dysfunction, more often by unchecked supremacy clause execution. The US was envisioned to look a lot more like the EU. The US Civil War required a stronger federal response, and unfortunately reconstruction failed to sufficiently address the primary economic differences in industrialization, resulting in deep geographical divides. Further propaganda machines set up by one party due to embarrassment over Nixon's resignation has resulted in one effective party; the other is primarily controlled by corporations.
  - readthenotes1 2y ago
    "more often by unchecked supremacy clause execution." Which is also quite often legistrature dysfunction.
- 2muchcoffeeman 2y ago
  There’s always been disgusting amounts of money involved with US presidential elections. Its just never been so blatant. Their whole system is not really geared towards a fair election. Gerrymandering, millions of dollars in political donations, optional voting and you don’t need to give time to employees to vote, voting system specifically designed to maintain a duopoly.

tomrod 2y ago

It is a shame this was flagged. This is a conversation that is needed. Culling all political discussion is not what today's hackers need.

sumeno 2y ago
It's not surprising when you consider HN is full of temporarily embarrassed tech billionaires
- 2muchcoffeeman 2y ago
  No one should be ashamed of being rich. What grates me is that these people have ginormous amounts of FU money and don’t exercise it. They just horde it and be more sociopathic.
  - pragmatic 2y ago
    Parent is referring to the Steinbeck quote.
- dang 2y ago
  "Please don't sneer, including at the rest of the community." It's reliably a marker of bad comments and worse threads. Also, please "Omit internet tropes." Both from https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
mclightning 2y ago
I came here to write this will get flagged, and I was already too late. We need a new "HackerNews"
- ThrowawayTestr 2y ago
  Check out the hackernews sub on rdrama.net
  - 2y ago

bawolff 2y ago

Seems kind of a bit much. I don't know what mark's true beliefs are. For all i know maybe his actions are ernest. I feel we need more than this to subscribe him a coward. Someone doing something you disagree with, or even being straight up evil, is not the same thing as being a coward.

kreyenborgi 2y ago
He did the exact opposite when it was trendy to do the opposite. Did his beliefs change so conveniently?
- ThrowawayR2 2y ago
  "Beliefs"? Classic binary "if you're not with us, you're against us" thinking. Believe it or not, a lot of people didn't really give a hoot about either side of the culture wars squabbling and just went with the flow.
  - pixxel 2y ago
    > just went with the flow Be better. Go against the flow.
    - ThrowawayR2 2y ago
      The public went against the flow at the voting booths in 2024: "Big voter turnout this year benefited Republicans, contradicting conventional political wisdom" (https://apnews.com/article/election-2024-voter-turnout-republicans-trump-harris-7ef18c115c8e1e76210820e0146bc3a5 https://apnews.com/article/election-2024-voter-turnout-repub...). Didn't work out too well, did it? Sometimes it's smarter to let sleeping dogs lie.
- bawolff 2y ago
  Maybe when it was trendy he heard some convincing arguments one way, and now that trends shifted, he was convinced to go to the other side. Maybe he doesn't give a shit at all and is going with the flow. None of this particulary feels like cowardice. Honestly, y'all should stop caring what mark thinks and start caring about the average american. Trump isn't scary because a couple of billionaires are on his side. He's scary because a majority of americans are on his side.

legitster 2y ago

Agreed with the cowardice. But I think it worked both ways. It was pretty clear that Facebook (and a lot of other industries) also took on a lot of practices that they clearly didn't believe in either. DEI was taken up performatively for political reasons. We cannot be upset when it is removed performatively for political reason. And we have to be honest that these programs were largely failures. Fact checking especially. Even performatively, these companies took on pretty big responsibilities, only garnered more criticism and controversy, gained nothing, and after years of plugging away had no light at the end of the tunnel.

grajaganDev 2y ago
Sandberg was pushing DEI long before 2020. And I don't think she was being performative. Agreed about the cringe cowardice.
ffsm8 2y ago
> Fact checking especially It's very confusing to me that pretty much nobody takes what Zuck said in that interview at face value. It's entirely possible he thought that doing fact checks is a good approach in the context of the beginning of Corona - and then find out how borderline impossible such an approach is in practice and consequently change his opinion on doing it...
davidguetta 2y ago
I mean it's also pretty arrogant and/or delusional to say that in his place, as a businessman, you would have been making a big stand against an entire US presidential administration.. Entities with that kind of attitude usually don't grow to the size facebook is. The biden administration using backchannels to pressure social media instead of being transparent about it are the one to MAINLY criticize. Zuckerberg is just another businessman speaking in whatever press relases will be best at that moment, but obeyed people he kinda HAD to obey at the end of the day. In general when the men with guns (here the law) speak, you listen

leopinh 2y ago

[dead]

LeroyRaz 2y ago

A poorly conceived and generic article. If he has a malignancy (if), it is greed not fear. And with that fact clear, the whole article makes no sense.

quantified 2y ago
I missed the accusation of malignancy. Malignancy and cowardice will lead to the same outcome when courage is called for. And MZ is simply greedy and afraid of losing what he's got, which is four orders of magnitude (at least) more than basically everyone else involved.
amai 2y ago
Greed leads to cowardice.
grahamj 2y ago
The two are not mutually exclusive.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

kreyenborgi 2y ago

> All that power, all those resources, all that potential influence - and he uses it to make himself smaller This is what I find most incomprehensible. These people really do have the power to do whatever they want and still have enough money to retire comfortably a thousand times over. And this is what they choose to do.

palata 2y ago
Insecure narcissists. Those guys had no friends before being rich, and they seem to have a deep need to feel loved. Because they don't know what it means to have actual friends, they think whatever they pay or enforce with money counts. It doesn't, they are just rich losers.

867-5309 2y ago

[flagged]

wswope 2y ago
[flagged]
sumeno 2y ago
People other than me exist so this doesn't really work In the same way that me not driving drunk doesn't protect me from drunk drivers

GeneralMayhem 2y ago

Also relevant: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/jan/16/i-knew-one-day-id-have-to-watch-powerful-men-burn-the-world-down-i-just-didnt-expect-them-to-be-such-losers https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/jan/16/i-knew.... It's incredible, really. I thought the main point of being a billionaire was independence. "Fuck-you money" taken to the extreme. You've "won" society, now do whatever you want. Make things better for humanity by funding novel research. Or sit in a cave and build the best orgasm machine ever. Whatever. I think Larry and Sergey have the right idea, but in very different ways: Larry has completely disappeared to go live on a private island, and Sergey gets to be as weird as he wants and still pops in to work on whatever tech project he finds interesting. I don't think having billionaires who live completely separately is a good thing for society, but those responses at least make sense to me. Zuckerberg became rich and famous for being a smart guy who didn't do the bullshit that other people wanted him to. Remember "move fast and break things"? And now instead... he (and Musk, but he's probably a true believer; and a number of others, but to lesser extents) want to... kowtow and suck up to a weak, blithering idiot? Profess the value of caveman-tier "masculinity" ideology? Never mind how obviously contradictory it is to believe in both "men should be strong" and "Donald Trump is what we should want in a man" - what is the point? Why is this what he wants to do with his power and wealth?

palata 2y ago
> Zuckerberg became rich and famous for being a smart guy who didn't do the bullshit that other people wanted him to. I disagree. He became rich for being in the right place at the right time. He became famous because he became rich.
jaybrendansmith 2y ago
It's really showing his deep lack of character; Aaron Sorkin got him dead on. He's always done the most convenient, values-free act possible from the get-go.

carlosdp 2y ago

Idk, this article assumes that the company before the recent changes reflected his beliefs of how companies should be run. But the way I see it, it's pretty clear he disagreed with a lot of it, and just felt too much pressure (internal from employees, external from the media) to not fall in line. Does no one remember that in the 2010s, Zuck went around trying to advocate against the calls for censoring "disinformation", arguing free speech shouldn't be regulated by a company? These types of views aren't new for him, they were aggressively suppressed by the press which published thousands of articles calling his ideas anything from "reckless" to "violent."[1][2] At some point, he gave in, in part because the new administration very much agreed with the media on this (and again, many of Meta's employees). But now he has the political cover to run things the way he actually wants to, which we can see from his public remarks years ago. So, you can I guess call him a "coward," but it would be misinformed, in my opinion, to claim he's a coward because he's seemingly kowtowing to the Trump people in the changes he's making. On the contrary, if anything he was a being a coward before by not following through on his true convictions! (fwiw, I don't agree any of this is cowardice. It's extremely difficult to run a company at that scale and try to keep everyone happy, and he's only human at the end of the day. The author simply disagrees with his currently expressed opinions. If he agreed, she might be calling him a hero, though probably not. I also think laying the NIH stuff at his feet is a huge non-sequitor. Zuck has nothing to do with any of that, idk what she's expecting he's supposed to do about it?) [1] https://www.cnbc.com/2019/10/18/mark-zuckerberg-georgetown-speech-history-isnt-on-facebooks-side.html https://www.cnbc.com/2019/10/18/mark-zuckerberg-georgetown-s... [2] https://www.google.com/search?q=mark+zuckerberg+tour+talking+about+free+speech+in+2010s&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8 https://www.google.com/search?q=mark+zuckerberg+tour+talking...

slibhb 2y ago
> Does no one remember that in the 2010s, Zuck went around trying to advocate against the calls for censoring "disinformation", arguing free speech shouldn't be regulated by a company? Nope! I remember it too. It was impressive at the time. All the CEOs standing in line acting like there's no problem with a ministry of truth approach, and Mark was the only one who said the obviously correct thing. I've liked him since then.

tsukasagenesis 2y ago

it's all fun to call it now coward when he rollback all his fake news/DEI stuff, but when he put it for biden administration, it was all for better. go figure.

slibhb 2y ago

Hating Mark Zuckerberg is like a barometer for someone having no mind of their own. We've been told that Mark was responisble for Trump in 2016 and teenagers having low esteeem. It's so laughable. He seems like a fine guy to me. His quasi-embrace of Trump reflects the wider public realizing that, first, Trump has some plus-sides (dismantling DEI is one of them). And second, the whole "resistance" thing really didn't pay off. I didn't vote for him, but he's president, and moping about it isn't useful. Zuckerberg and people's attitude towards him also represents progressives quite nicely, especially in their relationships with tech. Turns out "we hate you so much, you are awful and evil" is a good way to drive people away. edit - I will also say that Mark was the only tech CEO who impressed me in front of Congress, when he pushed back on the whole misinfo/disinfo craze.

hackerbeat 2y ago

Trump and his sleazy tech bros will go down in history as the gravediggers of democracy.

Sparyjerry 2y ago
[flagged]
- tzs 2y ago
  Democrats are not against voter ID if voter ID is free and easy to obtain for every person who is legally entitled to vote. And by "free" I don't mean that there is just no fee charged by the agency that issues the ID. I mean that it also shouldn't require documentation that cannot be obtained for free. There are plenty of links in this comment [1] with details on how many Americans who are legally entitled to vote lack ID and why it is difficult for many to obtain it. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42116609 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42116609
  - Sparyjerry 2y ago
    California democrats literally made it illegal to show ID in elections. Not just "Voter ID" but literally driver licenses.
    - tzs 2y ago
      Are you thinking of this [1]? [1] https://perkinscoie.com/insights/update/new-california-law-prohibits-localities-imposing-their-own-voter-id-requirements https://perkinscoie.com/insights/update/new-california-law-p...

outlore 2y ago

when you take the king’s shilling you must do his killing

mclightning 2y ago

[flagged]

dwaltrip 2y ago

Good recent Search Engine podcast episode on zuck and his changes over the years: https://open.spotify.com/episode/3Pvsvk6fGJa1BqnPGsske9?si=gRPvyWEKSeuLSZjmrTusTg https://open.spotify.com/episode/3Pvsvk6fGJa1BqnPGsske9?si=g...

anal_reactor 2y ago

I find it shocking how many otherwise intelligent people drank the kool-aid and believed that businesses have some mission bigger than making money, and salesmen tell the truth rather than whatever almost-lie gets the deal done. On top of that, it is very amusing to see people throw tantrums over being reminded that there exists a world and culture outside of their own bubble. The ignorance of California's upper-middle-class just couldn't last forever, and it had to come crashing down at some point.

SavageBeast 2y ago

Perhaps the opposite is true: Maybe Zuck found the courage to stand up for what he's come to believe in as he's matured as a person and a leader. Maybe what we're seeing now is a Zuck thats willing to say No More. Its seems rational that what we're seeing is just exactly that and that he actively wishes to be aligned with the policies of the new administration as he sees merit in their approach and ideas.

1vuio0pswjnm7 2y ago

https://nitter.poast.org/TheMarcitect/status/1878063172252586430 https://nitter.poast.org/TheMarcitect/status/187806317225258... https://nitter.poast.org/mtgilchrist/status/1877825066588672028 https://nitter.poast.org/mtgilchrist/status/1877825066588672... https://nitter.poast.org/MaryConner62814/status/1877800765286146506 https://nitter.poast.org/MaryConner62814/status/187780076528...

amai 2y ago

Move fast and break things no more. Bow fast and say yes to all demands of our new overlords is the new motto of Meta.