Holding Meta Accountable Through Collective Action
By Alejandra Montoya-Boyer
Early experiences shaped me into a tech optimist. I used my tech experience to engage in political campaigns, developing websites and social media content for candidates running for office in my home state of New Mexico. While I’ve always known that new and emerging technologies weren’t going to solve all of our problems, I did believe that they could add value to our lives — acting as a great equalizer across communities and connecting people to resources that felt out of reach. I believed that technology, especially social media, could connect people across divides under the banner of common interests and shared experiences. I worked with so many people who saw the impact that technology played in our lives and wanted to wield it for the better.
Unfortunately, recent events have dimmed my tech-optimism. What’s become increasingly clear is that too many tech “leaders” have capitulated to MAGA and the promise of power, protection, and profit, without caution or care about connecting themselves to a movement that spreads hate and division.
Donald Trump and his MAGA movement are building a government by the wealthy few for the wealthy few. These tech elites don’t care about you or me. They care about consolidating power and hoarding the country’s wealth for themselves. Consequently, they care about protecting themselves and their corporate interests from all scrutiny — all at the expense of our civil and human rights. Our privacy doesn’t matter to them. Our well-being doesn’t matter to them. We don’t matter to them.
The hard right turn of Mark Zuckerberg and Meta is instructive. To no one’s surprise, the man whose social media platform started as a forum to rank women’s hotness has become an alt-right shill. This shift was signaled by Zuckerberg’s letter to the House Judiciary Committee last year crying censorship and confirmed by Meta’s decision to rollback content moderation and fact checking. Zuckerberg mocked many of us with his appearances on a men’s rights podcast and at the inauguration (alongside Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, X and Tesla’s Elon Musk, and Google’s Sundar Pichai, a stark and dystopian image of power).
The tech industry’s submission to and adulation of President Trump — a notoriously thin-skinned man who is swayed easily by both excessive recognition and mild critique — and the MAGA agenda has already proven a boon to its profits and avoidance of government scrutiny. In a 24-hour period, Trump repealed President Biden’s executive order on AI guardrails and issued his own new vague executive order that will allow dis- and misinformation to thrive on social media. Those moves make it easier for the tech industry to take advantage of all of us, allowing online lies, falsehoods, and hate to drive attention and advertising dollars to their platforms. The result is an emerging technology with no safeguards to protect our freedoms and thwarted in developing the many potential benefits to society.
We now have nearly all of our major social media platforms turning toward chaos, division, and hate — allegedly to remain economically viable — and we’re being told to suck it up and accept it. There is no major platform that even tries to create a product where everyone is welcome.
These decisions from Zuckerberg and from Meta, which has three billion users across its platforms, incentivize a propaganda machine for MAGA. Just look at the widespread hateful immigration rhetoric that has preceded an onslaught of anti-immigrant policies. We’re watching hate be normalized in front of us with devastating consequences. Children in schools are now vulnerable to ICE. Our neighbors can be taken from their places of worship. Places that should be safe and sacred are in jeopardy. People who are born in the United States, who have been guaranteed citizenship by our constitution, are jeopardized by the whims of a hateful administration. There is also the very real threat of AI and algorithmic technology surveilling our communities and helping to enforce these horrific policies.
And still, somehow, I have hope. I know there are so many more people out there like me who are sick and tired of this inhumanity and injustice. We all see the chaos that is ensuing around us, and I know that we can do better. We must demand better from our government. We must demand better from the tech we use.
Sign our petition to join us in our fight to hold companies like Meta accountable for their role in sowing the seeds of hate. Use your voice. Collective action renews hope.
Alejandra Montoya-Boyer is the senior director for the Center for Civil Rights & Technology at the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights.