Mark Zuckerberg Makes Waves and a Note For Parents about X
Pulling Back the Curtains this Week
Mark Zuckerberg not only rides waves, he can’t stop making them. The Founder and CEO of Meta (Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Threads, Messenger), released a letter to Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Oh., addressing missteps regarding “content moderation” and “contributions I made during the last presidential cycle to support electoral infrastructure.” I want to step back and highlight a few things that can easily get lost in our short-term memory media coverage.
First and most importantly, don’t let this news be a distraction. Always remember Meta wants to protect their attention-driven business model at all costs. It relies on ad revenue from our addiction to their platforms. Some call it “Surveillance Capitalism.”
We’ll dive into that in our upcoming Online Course on the three illusions of social media, to be released soon in part for subscribers and in full for “Behind the Curtains” subscribers.
Second, this is a calculated political chess move leading up to election day on November 5, 2024. Meta was recently under fire for “incorrectly” applying a fact check to a real photo regarding the assassination attempt on July 13, 2024. Before that it was his apology during congressional testimony in January, 2024. Before that it was the Facebook Files in 2021. You get the picture. It’s important to stay in the good graces of the next presidential administration, because…
Third, Meta just released Llama 3.1 on July 23, 2024, its first open source (some would argue otherwise) AI model and is positioning itself to be a major competitor in AI development. In fact, just 7 days ago, Zuckerberg and Daniel Ek, Spotify CEO, released a joint statement on “Why Europe Should Embrace Open-Source AI”. In that release Meta’s CEO admitted its AI model trains on users’ public data, though without providing details and avoiding the copyright issues with AI training.
Lastly, CEOs of tech companies are under heavy scrutiny. Pavel Durov, CEO of Telegram, was arrested on August 24, 2024 in France on charges related to what they say is a lack of content moderation. Mr. Zuckerberg dated his letter to Mr. Jordan August 26, 2024. It’s no wonder many doubt the letter is self-reflective or repentant.
A quick note for parents…
A recent study from Qustodio, an online safety app we utilize as a family, claims, “Over 30% of kids aged 7-9 have access to the X (formerly Twitter) app." In contrast, a recent Pew Research study shows that 20% of teens, ages 13-17, use X, and that percentage is declining. So is Qustodio suggesting young kids are on X? Or is it possible that “access” is from a shared device? They don’t specify. Either way it doesn’t diminish the reality that parents should be aware that X is not intended for young kids or teens. Check out our own experience with X.
Parents, be aware. Adult content on X is permissible. Read it for yourself in X’s rules and policies updated May 2024, “You may share consensually produced and distributed adult nudity or sexual behavior, provided it's properly labeled and not prominently displayed.” A Reuters report from 2022 (when it was still called Twitter) states, “the company has estimated that adult content constitutes 13% of Twitter, according to a separate internal slide presentation.” Verifiable? Yes, considering ALL of the posts in our initial “For You” feed last week were adult content and p*rn bots.