Comment by stephenhuey
4 hours ago
So why not make the positive choice?
Zuckerberg claimed time and time again he wanted to connect the world, and it was part of the earliest mission statements:
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/sep/02/mark-zuck...
It was on the hoodie!
https://www.cnet.com/culture/zuckerberg-hoodie-makes-mountai...
Mark said, "But there’s this mission belief that connecting the world is really important, and that is something that we want to do. That is why Facebook is here on this planet."
https://www.thedrum.com/news/ads-not-short-term-solution-int...
He also said he wanted to make an impact, but I always felt like this was misguided, because what matters is whether the impact is positive or negative.
https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2017/05/mark-zuckerbe...
If we give him the benefit of the doubt that he actually wanted to achieve something positive, maybe he sadly became subdued by having to make an outsized return from VC money. I don't know that we should give him the benefit of the doubt, but imagine if he had sold to Yahoo for a paltry billion dollars and then created a site to truly connect people with a foundation or some other entity that gave him more freedom to ignore profit.
Meta has more luxury of choice than most companies. They can choose to make positive impacts if they so choose. "He chose poorly" and "You have chosen wisely" comes to mind from the the ancient knight in the 3rd Indiana Jones film:
Maybe he's choosing to connect the 99.998% of Facebook users in Saudi Arabia and UAE who have not been ordered blocked by their governments.
But, honestly, I think all he ever really wanted to do was make money, and control the narrative. The connecting the world stuff makes a nice sound bite, and it was the motivation for some of the others at the company though. Read Careless People.
Meta took less than $100m from VC money over a decade ago. It makes billions in profit a quarter.
And, additionally, it should be noted the corporate structure gives Zuckerberg near absolute power. So you can't really blame the decisions on anyone but him.