Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg is making some big changes since admitting to bowing to censorship pressure from the Biden administration.
The Facebook founder is now joining the ranks of other CEOs who are pulling politics out of company policy. This comes as former President Donald Trump amps up his attacks against Zuckerberg for coming clean about his role in suppressing negative content about President Joe Biden on his social media platform during the 2020 election.
A survey from WestGroup Research and the Manuel H. Johnson Center for Political Economy at Troy University found that the majority of people feel big companies have become way too political. Daniel Cameron, the CEO of 1792 Exchange, who published the survey, said people go to stores and companies for products, not political preaching.
“Nearly 80% of the population wants corporations to stay out of politics because they've seen the damage the corporations have done when they waded into political topics,” Cameron said.
The survey also found that 62% of people feel more CEOs should stop their companies' involvement in cultural and political issues. Zuckerberg is taking that advice and has also promised not to make any campaign donations or endorse any political candidates.
“I think it's important and healthy that Mark Zuckerberg has determined that it's probably best for them to just produce a good environment and for Americans to enjoy pictures of family members and to connect in ways that you know they can't necessarily do in person," Cameron said. "As opposed to feeling like they're being preached to, particularly when it comes to forces from the Left.”
The tech billionaire wrote in a letter to Congress that his company, Facebook, was asked by the FBI and senior officials to suppress content related to COVID-19 and the Hunter Biden laptop in 2021.
“When you go on Facebook, you want your information to be objective and fair," Cameron said. "You don't want it to be suppressed ... which is unfortunate now that we know that that happened at Facebook.”
“Zuckerberg admits that the White House pushed to SUPPRESS HUNTER BIDEN LAPTOP STORY (& much more!)," Trump posted on Truth Social. “IN OTHER WORDS, THE 2020 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION WAS RIGGED.”
The former president has become so enraged with the admission that he is actually publishing attacks on Zuckerberg in his new book . An undated picture of Zuck erberg and Trump sitting in the Oval Office has a caption saying the social media giant had a “plot against the president” and that if Zuckerberg cheats this election, “he will spend the rest of his life in jail."
Not only has Zuckerberg since apologized and vowed to fight censorship in the future, but he is also taking his company and himself out of politics.
"The main thing that I hear from people is that they actually want to see less political content on our services because they come to our services to connect with people," Zuckerburg told Bloomberg’s Emily Chang. "You know what, that's what we're going to do. We give people control over this, but we are generally trying to recommend less political content. So I think you are going to see our services play less of a role in this election than they have in the past.”
Cameron, who is also the former attorney general of Kentucky, now works at the nonprofit watchdog group 1792 Exchange , whose mission is to prevent companies from "going woke."
“CEOs and some of our largest corporations were making a determination that businesses, American businesses, needed to be built on diversity, equity, inclusion,” Cameron said.
But now? Cameron says there are many companies who, like Facebook, are doing a 180 and moving on from the DEI and social justice warrior era. He mentions several companies he believes are on the right track, including Tractor Supply , which announced it is ditching its goals of diversity, equity, and inclusion as part of its aim to refocus on its customers in rural America.
Major automaker Ford has backtracked on some of its DEI priorities. In a memo to employees, Ford CEO Jim Farley said the company would be joining other companies in no longer participating in corporate surveys from the LGBT rights group Human Rights Campaign.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
Those companies joined the ranks of Lowes and John Deer, who also recently scaled back their DEI initiatives.
"I think the path forward, as we're seeing, is going to be American businesses built on merit, excellence, and intelligence," Cameron said. "It's an exciting time to see our corporations getting back to business and focusing on serving all customers and getting out of the business of politics.”
Ashley Oliver and Asher Notheis contributed to this report.
Most Popular
Comments / 0