When the social becomes political

This week in the news, Mark Zuckerberg outed himself as a duplicitous weasel that seems to swing whichever way the current administration goes. Whereas up until now he was just a regular capitalist, and being on Meta platforms was routine and unpleasant but not a (huge) moral issue, now he's made his leadership point of view loud and clear. Mark Zuckerberg now wants to show a new side to him by going on podcasts with Joe Rogan and saying the world needs more 'masculine energy' and [lying about having a bow](https://www.instagram.com/reel/DEspLbsSCvL/?utm_source=ig_embed) to hunt with. [Cringe](https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/jan/16/i-knew-one-day-id-have-to-watch-powerful-men-burn-the-world-down-i-just-didnt-expect-them-to-be-such-losers)!. The last few months have shown him embrace a public persona that's meant to be more authentic and likable than his old self presentation. But it's all still a show, and in the same breath he's thrown his lot in with the current administration while throwing his old COO, Sheryl Sandberg, under the bus, instead of taking responsibility for the company's actions under his watch. After all, he's the one who owns the majority of the voting shares, a rather unique position in the corporate world. Whew. As an aside, I want to take a step back for a quick story. A few years back when I was in big advertising agency land, we did a small side project to see if a C-suite exec we were working with should start a social media presence. Would it help, or hurt his prospects? And if yes, what should they post? We analyzed the profiles of dozens of famous CEOs to see what they were doing and whether it was working. Although I can't share the results, I clearly remember the lessons: the word to the wise of publicly-traded companies was to stay out of social media altogether. The wiser you are, the less you should say. The wisest was zero. Where there's no presence, there's no financial risk; whatever a C-suite figure might say from any account might tank the stock, no matter how well you ghostwrite it and curate it. Even Silicon Valley CEOs mostly stayed away, apart from the odd tweet about their company's latest product or the benefits of transcendental meditation. But when Elon Musk started tweeting about Tesla, the world entered a new era. Elon was molded by the darkness of social media, and he was a master of it. He just couldn't help himself from sending tweets about Tesla that would move the stock price, all while doing it from his personal account. It's as if the more he tweeted, the more it didn't matter, until the SEC stepped in. But he did it with such finesse that it became a part of his brand. ## The platform exodus So why does it suddenly matter that Mark Zuckerberg is a duplicitous weasel? When things become a moral and seemingly political issue, that's how network effects might finally start to break down. When the CEO becomes politically outspoken and takes sides (not in the name of, e.g., public health or safety) as it maybe would've been wise not to, per my story above, more people who would have otherwise stayed on the platform start to leave. Until now, being on his platforms was not great but at least it was just about bearable in spite of other previous scandals (e.g., deliberate feed manipulation, for anyone old enough to remember). You and your friends spend time here enjoying each others’ posts, enriching Facebook with content, and letting it sell our attention to advertisers as the Western audiences that we are, with lots of disposable income, double or triple that of other markets. For ages, people looked for alternatives to Facebook and Twitter, but they never really took off. When a market is already saturated, it's hard to get people to switch as the network effects are too strong. You can't just switch to a new platform if all your friends are on the old one as you have a huge convincing job to do, and everyone has a lot to lose if it's boring or doesn't work out. TikTok shenanigans aside, while Mastodon may not have gained much traction in the past, Bluesky seems to have succeeded in attracting some X refugees. The death knell for all platforms is not just losing the most engaged or influential users, but losing its diversity. If the platform becomes a monocultural echo chaber or political, it's doomed to fail at scale. At best, it becomes some niche platform for a certain type of person, like Gab or Parler. The same goes for Musk: from doing a Nazi salute at Trump's inauguration to supporting far-right parties in Germany (Afd) with opinion pieces in local papers, we're now crystal clear about where he stands. It's not just about the money anymore, it's about the values that we're supporting. People smugly like to think that if they'd been alive during the Holocaust, they would have done something, and wouldn't have been bystanders. Musk's presence and actions are a test of that: what are you doing now that you know what he's doing? Why aren't you doing more or telling your friends? It's ok to take your time leaving and disconnecting from these platforms if you've invested a lot of your time and energy in them, but it feels like we've reached a watershed moment: it's not ok to stay silent about it or keep supporting these people and platforms with your attention and money. I'll follow up with a post about how you can fill you time and attention with more meaningful things, and how you can help others do the same.