#Mark Zuckerberg presides over a toxic world — but never really pays a price

Few unelected public figures are as smugly impervious to morals and ethics as Mark Zuckerberg.

So it’s been infuriating to read all the breathless news coverage about Facebook’s latest crisis, the potential loss of $70 billion in revenue as advertisers flee the platform over its unregulated content, the company’s very survival in question.

“Could a Boycott Kill Facebook?” asked the BBC.

Short answer: No.

“Facebook sees $60 billion in market value erased in just 2 days,” said Business Insider.

So? To Zuckerberg, that’s like losing change in the couch cushions.

“Facebook may be headed to the ‘graveyard of dinosaurs,’ ” said Yahoo Finance.

Really? Then why has Joe Biden announced that his campaign won’t pull its advertising from Facebook, despite calls from the civil rights umbrella campaign #StopHateForProfit?

“We share the concerns of companies who are speaking up about Facebook’s inaction around making meaningful changes that protect our democracy,” said a Biden spokesperson. “But with less than five months until Election Day, we cannot afford to cede these platforms to Donald Trump and his lies.”

Classic verbose doublespeak for: We don’t care. We’ll do what it takes to get what we want.

And it’s apt, because that’s exactly what all these major corporations ostensibly taking stands — and what Zuckerberg, in agreeing to meet with these activists — really think.

Does anyone really believe that behemoths such as Coca-Cola, Starbucks, Target, Adidas and about 400 other companies are going to vanish forever from a platform that serves 2.3 billion users? Or that Zuckerberg, who has made similar feints and issued similar platitudes before, cares about anything other than power and profit?

When old instant messages of Zuckerberg’s surfaced in 2010, IM’s in which he called Facebook users “dumb f—ks” for giving him so much of their private information, he told The New Yorker he had made a youthful error. “I think I’ve grown and learned a lot,” he said.

Fake news, Russian bots, deep fakes on Facebook influencing the 2016 presidential election? “Pretty crazy idea,” said Zuckerberg.

Used as propaganda by tyrants, despots and terrorist organizations? “Facebook has a lot of work to do,” he said in 2018.

Meanwhile, social media like Facebook has been nuclear weaponized in 2020, the year in which Performative Outrage dominates.

Celebrities get cancelled daily, for increasingly minor stuff. Ellen DeGeneres isn’t a nice person in real life? Kill her career!

Terry Crews, an early hero of the #MeToo movement, is on the verge of cancellation for tweeting this terrible, inflammatory sentiment:

“If you are a child of God, you are my brother and sister. I have family of every race, creed and ideology. We must ensure #blacklivesmatter doesn’t morph into #blacklivesbetter.”

Also: Were you aware that not posting a black square on Blackout Tuesday last month meant you were identifying as a racist? We’re renaming edible products and tearing down statues but not yet having deep, meaningful, hard conversations — conversations that invariably mean any one of us, no matter how well-meaning, might have the right thought articulated the wrong way and be cancelled for it.

History is prelude, so after this civil rights summit, expect a statement about how honored and humbled Zuckerberg was to meet with these brave new leaders, how much he’s learned and will continue to learn, listen, and heed his white privilege while making Facebook a safe space for all. It’s a safe space for none.

Is it any wonder that a Mark Zuckerberg thrives in this era? He was practically born for it. He created a platform under the guise of unifying us yet has actually built an ecosystem where fear, hate, disinformation, threats and vengeance is meted out daily and mercilessly — a porous space where anyone can be cancelled for anything.

Except, by design, Mark Zuckerberg.