🤖 The Algo Gods Speak (Special Edition)

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🤳🏽 The Revolution Will Be Livestreamed

Brace yourself for whiplash.

In 2021, Meta suspended Donald Trump’s Facebook and Instagram accounts. Twitter did the same. Since then, not only have Trump’s accounts on Meta been full re-instated, he has appointed the new owner of Twitter-now-X, Elon Musk, as a key member of his administration. Trump also went on to launch his own social media company, Truth Social, to questionable success.

In what seems-like-a-parallel-timeline-but-is-the-same-timeline, Trump pushed for the ban of ByteDance-owned TikTok in 2020, before providing TikTok a 75-day extension on an upcoming for-all-intents-and-purposes ban in the U.S. market, even calling for a reversal on the ban itself.

In the mean time, Meta has laid off their fact-checkers, and Zuckerberg and Musk were supposed to have an MMA fight (yes I know… yes…) but my point is that this has literally been the last five years and if anybody is predicting that they know what’s going to happen next they are outright liars.

Anyway, to announce these revamped wholesale changes at Meta and TikTok, Zuckerberg and Chew took to vertical video to share their thoughts with the world back in January. Both videos were posted on their respective official company LinkedIn pages, so that’s where we’re taking these videos from to remove any inherent or imagined advantage that these videos would have on their own platforms or on their own personal accounts.

Let’s have a look at what they said, starting with Meta.

💪🏽 META: Mark Zuckerberg | More Speech and Fewer Mistakes [link]

📢 What Mark is saying
Zuckerberg’s 5 minute and 17 second video claims that the last four years have had an overbearing atmosphere of censorship and a reductions of ‘freedoms’ on Meta’s platforms. With the reelection of Donald Trump, Meta is removing their layer of fact-checkers and replacing it with a community-based service instead. Zuckerberg also says that the teams are reprioritising free speech on the platform, and that these loosenings of restrictions may mean that illegal actors may not be caught as efficiently as they were before.

1. 📸 Visuals

It’s a talking head video. Zuckerberg is sitting at an angle at a wooden table with a wooden wall behind him that looks like it has some drawers in the bottom half. He’s wearing a dark blue oversized t-shirt, a gold chain that has an engraved pendant with a Jewish prayer that he sings for his daughters every night, and an apparently US$900K watch called the Greubel Forsey Hand Made 1.

The video has hardcoded English subtitles at the bottom, along with floating text that goes across the top of Zuckerberg’s head to punctuate and bullet-point his speech. We only see his torso and upper body. His elbows are on the table in front him, and his lower body is completely hidden. His hands are clasped loosely in front of him, and he gesticulates minimally throughout his entire speech.

He is looking straight at the viewer, and apart from a few blinks, is unfussed and fairly still in the video. Towards the end of the video is the only time he hints at a smile, but for the rest of the video his expression is neutral.

2. ✍🏽 Words

Zuckerberg starts off with a friendly ‘Hey everyone’, before immediately diving into the topic of the video - Facebook and Instagram getting back to their roots of free expression. He mentions that this is something that he personally wants to talk about (‘I want to talk about something important today’). He then briefly looks to the past, explaining why he initially started to build social media (‘to give people a voice’) and how he strongly believes in protecting freedom of expression. He then foreshadows an explanation of why he has not been able to protect these freedoms for the last few years.

He blames political and media forces for pushing online media companies to censor their content (‘Governments and legacy media have pushed to censor more and more’) while admitting that not all the pressure has been political as there is some ‘legitimately bad stuff’ on the platform, like ‘drugs, terrorism, child exploitation’. He then goes on to explain that it is because Meta takes such issues seriously that they have implemented complex systems to deal with it. However, with complexity comes mistakes.

It is because of these repeated mistakes, and also because of the recent elections, that Meta is simplifying policies and ‘prioritising speech’. He then ranks the six steps that Meta is taking.

First, he mentions that they will ‘get rid of fact-checkers’, replacing them with a system similar to what is used on X. He mentions that how when Trump was elected back in 2016, it was legacy media who ‘wrote non-stop about how misinformation was a threat to democracy’, and that even though Meta tried to act in good faith, the fact-checkers became ‘too politically biased’, having the adverse effect of destroying trust.

Second, he mentions that Meta will remove restrictions around content for topics like immigration and gender, to be better aligned with ‘mainstream discourse’. Once again, he explains it as a course correction that has swung too far the other way. Third, he speaks for the first time about a technical change to the platform; content filters will be tweaked and adjusted to only target ‘illegal and high-severity violations’, while the platform will depend on individuals reporting low-severity violations before Meta will act. This is being done to avoid mistakes and allow for less censorship.

Zuckerberg admits here that this may also mean Meta ‘catches less bad stuff’, but it also reduces innocent people from getting censored. Fourth, Zuckerberg heralds the return of ‘civic content’, where more political content will be served to users, based off of their own feedback. Fifth, Meta will move their content moderation and trust and safety teams for the U.S. out of California and into Texas, to prevent concern about the teams’ bias.

Finally, Meta will work with Trump to push back against governments ‘around the world [who are] going after American companies and pushing to censor more’. He specifically mentions how the U.S. has the strongest legislation for free expression in the world, while Europe has several policies that institutionalise censorship and make it difficult to innovate, and Latin America has secret courts that ‘order companies to quietly take things down’. China gets the first mention here, with Zuckerberg saying that China simply does not allow Meta apps to operate in the country. Zuckerberg truly believes that the only way to ‘push back’ is with the help of the U.S. government, which has been challenging for the last four years since the previous administration has themselves ‘pushed for censorship’.

Zuckerberg ends by sharing his excitement at the upcoming prospects, restating that the systems are complex and are ‘never going to be perfect’, but this is more about going back to their roots of ‘giving people a voice’.

He ends the video by encouraging all of us to ‘stay good out there’.

❓ What it means
There is only one audience for this video, and its those people who have been criticising Facebook and Instagram (nobody says Meta) for being too ‘woke’ and for being very heavy handed in their content moderation. Zuckerberg has worded the entire argument as one against heavy-handed censorship and for freedom of expression, which is something that should technically unite all peoples of all creeds, and yet it says something about the image and goodwill that Meta and Zuckerberg have eroded over the years that most people’s responses in the comments have been hostile. But perhaps those are exactly the kinds of people who comment on videos online.

In as many words, Zuckerberg is saying that Meta will now be less restrictive and more libertarian, if not exactly anarchic (reminder: anarchy does not mean chaos, it means something closer to ‘without governance’ due to a shared voluntary social cooperative responsibility). So while this may be viewed through a more binary left/right lens, it feels more like Meta is removing itself from the responsibility of governance, and asking users to instead step into that void more actively. How exactly does that work in a state with over 3 billion people?

⚠️ Why it matters
Two things - Zuckerberg’s video can be hated by all sides of the political divide. For liberals, they hate that there is less restrictions on what they consider more harmful content, meaning more a more toxic social space. Conservatives (and by extension libertarians) may believe that the removal of the restrictions do not go far enough. The bigger question is why now, and what does this say about Zuckerberg?

Let’s consider for a moment - Zuckerberg did not announce these changes in November 2024 (immediately after Trump’s second election victory), nor did he announce these changes during the Biden administration. He only did so a few days after Trump’s second inauguration. So it’s hard to believe that this change of heart is something that Zuckerberg has been contemplating for a while. It seems to be more opportunistic than anything else, so that Meta, and by extension Zuckerberg, can do business easily in the U.S. and can count on the might of the U.S. government in other markets where they need it.

Because, despite Zuckerberg claiming that the platform has been stifled by Biden’s administrative overreach on free speech, they have still managed to post record-breaking revenue and net income for the last two years. So clearly, censorship is not bad for business.

And perhaps that’s the point. Meta is too big and too powerful to really care about how you feel as a free user of their platform. Zuckerberg’s video can be interpreted to mean that his priority is to make doing business easier for himself. It just so happens that the wind blows this way right now, but who know what’ll happen in 2028?

🙏🏽 TIKTOK: Our response to the Supreme Court decision [link]

📢 What TikTok is saying
Chew’s 1 minute 24 second video was published on the day the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the ban on TikTok. We now know that there’s currently a 75-day reprieve, but while that is not mentioned in the video, Chew’s message is still clear - thank you President Trump for allowing us to fight another day.

1. 📸 Visuals

The video definitely has a handheld feel to it, which is very likely considering the random vibrations mid-video. While it is also a talking head video, this is much less produced. It feels like Chew whipped out his phone and recorded a spontaneous message, very much in line with TikTok-like content. Chew is dressed in a dark suit, with a light shirt and a dark patterned tie. He is standing in a room with white walls, and behind him is a bookcase filled with books. Above his head hangs a chandelier, and it looks like right behind him is a fireplace, but there’s never a clear shot of this.

Chew is recording this video with his left hand, as his right hand occasionally makes appearances to accentuate his points as he speaks. He is speaking slowly, clearly, while still delivering a fair amount of enthusiasm for his message without unnaturally exaggerating it. He only smiles when thanking users of the platform for ‘surprising and delighting us everyday’.

Subtitles are hardcoded into the video as well, but these float above Chew’s head, and are in the TikTok branded white-on-black colours. And even though it is not obvious there are a few edits/jump cuts in the video, in true TikTok style.

2. ✍🏽 Words

Chew starts off with a friendly ‘Hi everyone, it’s Shou here.’ He then reminds viewers that TikTok has been ‘fighting’ to ‘protect’ the right to free speech for 170 million Americans on the platform. He also mentions how the platform helps these very Americans to ‘achieve their dreams’. He then thanks Trump ‘on behalf of everyone at TikTok and all our users across the country’ for wanting to work with TikTok to keep them operational in the U.S.

Chew doubles down on the freedom of speech argument by stating that this engagement with Trump is a ‘strong stand for the first amendment’ and against what he calls ‘arbitrary censorship’. He then reiterates TikTok’s own positioning of their platform (as a community of creativity and free expression) and mentions that there are also over 7 million small businesses on the platform. He then once again thanks Trump (not in name this time) for being one who ‘truly understands our platform’, since Trump has also used TikTok to gain tremendous reach (‘generating 60 billion views of his content’).

Chew then thanks the American users of the platform for making it so unique, before assuring the community that TikTok will continue to do whatever they can to keep the platform live in the U.S. as ‘your online home’ for ‘years to come’, before wrapping up the video.

❓ What it means
Two thank-yous to Trump and only one thank you to the 170 million users and 7 million businesses on the platform. It’s easy to see who the audience for this video is. Despite reiterating the message that TikTok is single-handedly fighting for the constitutional rights of its American users, Chew not only thanks Trump, he also overtly mentions the great success that Trump has achieved on the platform.

The video is light on details on what has already transpired and what is to happen next. There’s no real reference to the ban, or how this may or may not impact people either working at TikTok or those who have their businesses tied to TikTok’s platform. However, Chew is ready to thank Trump on behalf of all these people, without really addressing their concerns in any meaningful way.

⚠️ Why it matters
It’s weird because Trump was the one who called for a TikTok ban during his first stint as president. Now he’s being heralded as the saviour of the platform. However, the truth is that Trump’s views on TikTok could change once again. There’s no guarantee of his allegiance one way or another. Chew, in fairness, is doing exactly what Zuckerberg is doing in his video - whatever he can to keep his company doing business in the market.

It’s likely that this is the last play that TikTok has left before either selling the company or shutting down the company in the U.S. market. Which is why such a public display of affection is called for. We’ll know for sure in another month whether any of this actually worked.

WHAT’S GOING ON? 

🫶🏽 The Ultimate Private-Public Partnership

Let’s be clear - this isn’t a fair comparison. On the one hand, we have Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of one of the largest companies to have ever existed, and who more-or-less proliferated social media as a concept and an industry and made it mainstream. Also, he is American. On the other hand, we have Shou Zi Chew, a Singaporean CEO of a challenger company to Meta, which is part of a China-based parent company.

Zuckerberg is a founder who has famously kept most big decisions and control of the company with himself; Chew is an employee. While Meta is trying to curry favour with the Trump administration to be able to keep growing, TikTok is fighting a more existential fight that it cannot really win without any meaningful diffusion in international tensions between the U.S. and China.

So what we get is a video of one of the richest and most powerful men in the world, dressed in a casual t-shirt and gold chain, trying to change the status quo, and another video of a man, in a full suit and tie, trying to keep it. And yet both tech bros, obnoxiously and wrongly, lay claim to lead companies that are the last frontier of free speech and free expression.

Video is a powerful tool - more people consume video than any other media. Both tech leaders have used video to deliver their messages directly to their audience. But who is their audience? Is it Donald Trump? Is it the people who voted for him? Is it American citizens? Is it the employees of Meta and TikTok? Is it the rest of the world, looking on from outside?

The truth, as always, is somewhere in between.
Read widely. Question thoroughly. Decide accordingly.

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Was this forwarded to you? Signpost is a free weekly newsletter analysing what the media says, what it means, and why it matters. It’s free to subscribe. Alternatively, you can add me on LinkedIn.