What Will Be the Impact of Social Media Plunging Us Further into a Post-Truth Crisis?

Why Zuckerberg’s changes at Meta signal a darker future for Democracy...

Meta’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg (wearing a $900,000 watch) announced yesterday morning that across their over-7-billion-user-strong social media empire — Facebook, Instagram, Threads, WhatsApp — they’ll be dialing back on fact-checking. They’re also preparing to promote more “political” content (among other changes that support those two moves, like no longer filtering out trash-talking women, queer people, or immigrants, and moving what’s left of their Trust & Safety team from liberal California to conservative Texas).

Here’s the problem: Republican politicians rely on lies, distortions, and falsehoods to sell most of their policies and candidates.

They must do this because the reality of their actual goals (cut billionaire taxes, increase pollution, gut worker and consumer protections, defund schools and medical care, privatize and cut Social Security and Medicare, subsidize oil companies, outlaw abortion, etc.) are so repellent to most Americans.

The Democratic Party, on the other hand, has been shockingly scrupulous for decades about telling the truth, at least with regard to policy. The last “big lie” I can remember coming from the Dems was LBJ’s claiming that North Vietnam had attacked us at the Gulf of Tonkin. And that was 60 years ago!

Seriously, can you think of any major Democratic Party lies in the past few decades that Democratic politicians repeated regularly on cable TV shows, op-eds, and in campaign commercials? Particularly, lies about important public policy debates and the structure of our government and its programs?

I did a search for “Democratic lies” using 2 different AI programs, Google, and DuckDuckGo. The worst I could find — none of which are consequential or even real, actual, or oft-repeated lies — were, according to those search sites:

— Only the rich will pay more taxes under proposed policies.
— A transition to green energy won’t cost any jobs.
— Sanctuary cities reduce crime rates universally.
— Social media platforms primarily suppress left-wing voices.
— Trump’s Project 2025 wasn’t actually Trump’s project.
— Expanding federal funding for education guarantees improved student outcomes.
— Kamala Harris falsely claimed Trump encouraged Putin to invade U.S. allies.
— Harris mischaracterized a border security bill as the "strongest in decades."
— Tim Walz falsely attributed a quote about ruthless use of power to JD Vance.
— Illinois Governor JB Pritzker misleadingly claimed Trump told people to drink bleach for COVID-19.
— Electric vehicles are affordable and practical for all Americans, regardless of income or location.

On the other hand, those same sources handed me this (partial) list of actual and destructive-to-democracy-and-society lies that are regularly told and promoted by Republicans in pretty much every venue and show up every Sunday on the political shows:

— The 2020 election was stolen.
— Global warming isn’t real or important.
— Giving tax cuts to billionaires helps average working people.
— Biden “opened” our southern border for four years.
— Democrats encourage illegal immigrants to vote.
— Social Security is a Ponzi scheme that’s going broke and can only be fixed by cutting benefits or privatization.
— A national healthcare system like every other advanced democracy in the world has won’t work in America.
— Free or inexpensive college doesn’t benefit the nation, but student debt builds “individual responsibility.”
— The Democratic Party is filled with sexual monsters and child predators who drink blood.
— Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and Afghanistan was responsible for 9/11.
— The United States was founded as a Christian nation, and the Founding Fathers intended it to be governed by biblical law.
— Critical Race Theory is being taught in elementary schools to make white children feel guilty.
— Cutting corporate taxes leads to higher wages for workers.
— Climate change policies are an attack on the economy and personal freedom.
— Gun control laws lead to higher crime rates.
— Wind and solar energy are unreliable and will destroy the energy grid.
— LGBTQ+ rights threaten religious freedom and the safety of children.
— Voter fraud is a widespread problem in the United States.
— Democrats want to abolish the police and create lawless “anarchy zones.”
— Universal basic income or expanded welfare programs discourage hard work.
— Raising the minimum wage will destroy small businesses and increase unemployment.
— Public schools are indoctrinating children with Marxist and homosexual ideologies.
— The Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) caused massive job losses and economic ruin.
— Immigration is the primary cause of crime and drug trafficking in the U.S.
— The January 6th insurrection was a peaceful protest.
— Unions are corrupt and hurt workers more than they help.
— Democrats are pushing to remove God and religion from American society.
— The mainstream media is entirely biased and acts as a propaganda arm for the Democratic Party.
— Raising taxes on the wealthy will hurt small businesses and destroy the economy.
— Abortion is murder, and Democrats support killing babies even after birth.
— Medicare and Medicaid are unsustainable and should be privatized.
— America’s biggest national security threat is China, not climate change.
— Universal background checks for gun purchases are a slippery slope to gun confiscation.
— The U.S. military is being weakened by “woke” policies and diversity initiatives.
— Public health measures during pandemics, like masks and vaccines, are a government overreach and an attack on personal freedom.
— The Green New Deal will eliminate cows, airplanes, and American jobs.
— The COVID-19 vaccine is part of a government tracking or depopulation program.
— Teachers’ unions are destroying education by prioritizing their own interests over students.
— Democrats want to eliminate suburbs through urban housing policies.
— Cutting capital gains taxes helps working Americans and stimulates the economy.
— The U.S. has the best healthcare system in the world, and any changes would make it worse.
— Climate scientists are exaggerating or fabricating evidence to get government funding.
— Most Americans support banning books and other restrictions on teaching controversial topics.
— Homelessness is caused by laziness and bad personal choices, not systemic issues like housing costs and investment operations.
— DEI, Affirmative Action, and similar programs are a form of “reverse racism” that discriminates against white people.
— Black immigrants eat white people’s dogs and cats.
— January 6th was an inside FBI operation, a Democratic Party Antifa operation, or both.

These lies have political potency and have often altered election outcomes. Many or even most are frequently promoted by Republican politicians at every opportunity. Many are at the foundation of GOP political campaigns.

Zuckerberg, the country’s richest millennial (with an estimated 1/50th of all American millennial’s wealth in his own money bin), recently made the pilgrimage to Mar-a-Lago to kiss Trump’s ass and hand him a $1 million check.

Yesterday, Trump bragged that Zuck did this because he was frightened by Trump’s explicit and written threat to put him in prison for the “rest of his life.” He essentially bragged, “I’m alpha, Zuck is beta.”

Zuckerberg also put one of Trump’s closest personal buds, CEO of Ultimate Fighting Championship Dana White, on Meta’s board of directors, where White can keep an eye on the CEO for Trump.

Finally, Zuckerberg promoted Joel Kaplan, former White House Deputy Chief of Staff for George W. Bush, to Chief Global Affairs Officer. Kaplan then went on Fox and bragged that they were making the changes because Trump is coming into the White House:

“We saw a lot of societal and political pressure, all in the direction of more content moderation, more censorship, and we’ve got a real opportunity. Now, we’ve got a new administration and a new president coming in who are big defenders of free expression, and that makes a difference.”

Right.

One hand washes the other. Meta is fighting the federal government right now, which wants to break up its alleged monopoly. Trump’s friends Putin and the rightwing death squad militias forming in America — when their most violent members are let out of prison with a pardon — can now have free rein to dominate, recruit, and terrorize on social media, much like they did before.

Most important, though, in a nation where one political party routinely uses lies and distortions but the other is generally committed to telling the truth, who benefits when the “free expression” of political lies is dramatically boosted?

(And none of this even begins to explore the political bias of the algorithms used by Meta and X to promote rage-producing content to users…because those algorithms are secret.)

Meta and X could prioritize telling the truth and stopping — or at least identifying — naked political lies to help stabilize America’s political system and society. Instead, it appears that the 54% of Americans who get all or most of their news from social media are now about to get drenched in a hurricane of Republican lies and misinformation.

This is not without consequences for our nation and the world.

The removal of fact-checkers and subsequent increase in false online information, which we’ve already seen on other platforms, erodes truth and accountability in public discourse, creates fertile ground for authoritarian politicians, undermines democratic processes, and fuels societal polarization.

It’s exactly what Vladimir Putin wants for America and has paid millions for trolls to produce for years, which is why it’s no surprise that Donald Trump would threaten Mark Zuckerberg to make it happen.

Without a shared baseline of truth, meaningful public debate becomes impossible. People retreat into echo chambers, making collective problem-solving a relic of the past and turning governance into a tool for manipulation rather than representation.

Ultimately, this path leads to a dystopia where truth becomes irrelevant, power dictates reality, and the fundamental principles of democracy — accountability, transparency, and representation — are destroyed.

The proof that we’re already a far ways down this road is that — by substantial margins — voters who got their news and political/current events information from traditional sources like major newspapers and the mainstream TV networks (that still fact-check) voted for Harris, while those who got most of their news from social media primarily voted for Trump.

Republican strategists know this and are rubbing their hands with glee at the prospect of Meta following X’s path.

But the worst of it is that virtually all of the Democratic “lies” aren’t really lies; they’re usually disjointed attempts to push policies (like raising taxes on the rich or Medicare For All) that ultimately benefit average Americans.

On the other side, though, virtually all of the Republican “lies” are actual lies or major distortions designed to either inflame bigoted passions or conceal the real goal of what they’re doing in the background (typically to make the morbidly rich even richer).

For example, as the press is focused on Trump‘s Greenland rants, Republicans in Congress are preparing a massive multi-trillion-dollar tax cut (that will fuel inflation and further impoverish working-class people) for billionaires like Musk, Zuckerberg, and Trump.

The old sleight-of-hand begins anew, with social media ready to put it on steroids.

Using massive amounts of naked lies as a political strategy is relatively new in America, having started with Reagan promising that trickle down would increase prosperity and gone into hyperdrive with Trump’s first lie-filled term.

By killing off or even reducing meaningful fact-checking, Zuckerberg, like Musk before him, is handing a loaded gun to a GOP ready and willing to use it, while Democrats are left with, at best, slingshots that they really don’t even want to use (and aren’t particularly good at).

And you can bet your bottom dollar that billionaires Trump, Zuckerberg, Putin, and Musk know it.

My reading this article as an audio podcast is here.
My new book, The Hidden History of the American Dream, is now available.
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