If you’ve followed my work at all over the years, you’ll know that I’m not exactly the biggest fan of Facebook, or as I’ve called it at times, “Fascistbook.” Not that he’d ever know who I am, but there’s clearly no love lost from me towards Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Sorry, he’s weird. Can we say that in 2025? Eh, I will.
Anywho, on a more positive note, Zuckerberg actually made a couple of decent moves in the last day or so with his announcement that Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) President and CEO Dana White will be joining the Meta board of directors, along with the news that Facebook will be dropping their completely biased “fact-checking” system in favor of an X-style community notes system for post on the platform.
According to an X post by White, Zuckerberg wrote the following in a statement:
“I’m excited to kick off the year with some news we’ve been working on for a while: Dana White, [chairman of Stellantis and Ferrari] John Elkann, and [technology investor] Charlie Songhurst are joining Meta’s board of directors. We have massive opportunities ahead in AI, wearables, and the future of social media, and our board will help us achieve our vision.
Dana is the President and CEO of UFC, and he has built it into one of the most valuable, fastest growing, and most popular sports enterprises in the world. I’ve admired him as an entrepreneur and his ability to build such a beloved brand.”
Related: Bozell: ‘It Took Real Guts’ for Zuckerberg to End Facebook’s ‘Fact-Check’ Censorship
Zuckerberg’s “admiration” of White has possibly increased in the last couple of years while he has taken up the martial art of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu (BJJ). It also doesn’t hurt that President-elect Donald Trump has been an ardent supporter of the UFC, and Zuckerberg has reportedly been wanting to reach across the aisle to revive a dying Facebook.
In response to the announcement, White said the following:
“I’ve never been interested in joining a board of directors until I got the offer to join Meta’s board. I am a huge believer that social media and AI are the future…
I am very excited to join this incredible team and to learn more about this business from the inside. There is nothing I love more than building brands, and I look forward to helping take Meta to the next level.”
I love social media. And I’m excited to be a small part of the future of AI and emerging technologies. @Meta pic.twitter.com/Amh5W728og
— danawhite (@danawhite) January 6, 2025
It shouldn’t be interesting to see if the nerds behind the algorithms at Facebook loosen up a bit and allow free speech not to be shadow banned as much any longer. I can tell you from experience that, especially during President Joe Biden regime, Facebook has typically not even shared most of the posting on their platforms to people that actually follow conservative pages, let alone the public at large.
It’d be nice, but I’ll believe it when I see it.
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McDonalds becomes another huge company to ditch its DEI policies.
— MRCTV (@mrctv) January 7, 2025
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