It's fascinating how we've come to this, where we've let our society be influenced so profoundly by social media platforms and the men who run them. It's bad and I hope we can eventually diffuse the power that's been concentrated in their hands.
But they're not the same, these men. Only one of them really scares me. What scares me about Zuck is observable in his public behavior. He knows EXACTLY what he's doing and saying at all times. That's why when stuff like this comes out, you can be assured it was no coincidence, and you have to face the fact that he doesn't care.
I agree with the sentiment, but don't think "let our society come to this" is the right framing.
This is how the USA has always been run, except in the past the billionaire class created the whole university to shape society. Like JD Rockefeller and the University of Chicago, which continues to have a profound political influence on the entire field of Economics.
It's absolutely pernicious and we normal people do need to fight it every way we can.
I agree with you that he is at best seemingly being indifferent, which is the same act as not caring; inaction is an act too; the origin story of TheFacebook lays a firm foundation for a continuation of similar behaviours even nearly two decades later.
If he hears about this - and he should if he's being caring, careful, and keeping his eye on the "empire"- and takes actions against this seeming cover up and suppression attempt, then that would bode well for him. That doesn't seem to fit into his character though, unlike Elon Musk standing up to the advertising industrial complex (and the parties it's aligned with who want to suppress truths and control the narrative) who very publicly will tell bad actors to go fuck themselves; "Hi Bob!"
I think or hope we're yet to see the consequences of controlling founders and boards of directors of these mammoth Fortune 500 companies that a small handful of individuals are wielding to control, whether solely for profit motive or evil, and arguably captured or corrupt institutions within the US government - of which the Twitter Files showed them working together to interfere with elections, suppress voices that countered the desired mainstream narrative talking points (propaganda) from top institutions from Harvard, etc.
The Nuremberg Code and punishment didn't exist prior to the Nuremberg Trials, where "I was just following orders" wasn't adequate justification, and it was concluded that "they should have known better."
The "power" and profits that come from these scalable systems are immense-unfathomable - and why you have to work from first principles, ethics as a foundation of that, to at least attempt to reduce and limit the externalized or collateral damage.
I personally believe the ad industrial complex needs to go, allowing people to be too cheaply-shallowly manipulated - where consumers are then paying a higher price for products and services to be manipulated; Tesla's vehicles would be ~6% more expensive if Tesla advertised - their success otherwise being attributed to mostly creating a good product that people wanted.
I've started to wonder if advertising being allowed in society should be considered a form of unnecessary-harmful inflation-inflammation, driving up prices, as well as lowering access to higher quality of products that everyone - as economies of scale for cheap products will not only them more readily available but also make better quality products more expensive due to lower quantities being in demand, etc.
But it's tricky because a high quality product that doesn't advertise could relatively quickly be surpassed by a low quality "good enough" product that's willing to advertise and flood the market with it, and trickier yet when it's an attention economy and reminding people you exist is part of the current competitive landscape especially for certain product types; the problem being people aren't accounting for to include the externalized costs - but where a simple mechanism of "don't buy from any brands that advertise" could counter all of that.
But they're not the same, these men. Only one of them really scares me. What scares me about Zuck is observable in his public behavior. He knows EXACTLY what he's doing and saying at all times. That's why when stuff like this comes out, you can be assured it was no coincidence, and you have to face the fact that he doesn't care.