Silicon Valley inspires utopian thinking. After revolutionising everything from the media to communications to taxi services, progressive elites in the Bay Area are now eyeing up government and politics, wondering how they can “disrupt” both. Will American politics survive their delusions of grandeur?
The latest billionaire buffoon is Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook. Having noticed that Jack Dorsey is out-doing him in the realm of leftist political whackery, the social media kingpin has begun to wear his progressivism on his sleeves. Facebook’s users — far more numerous than Twitter’s — are sure to suffer.
Recently, we reported that Zuckerberg reprimanded a number of Facebook employees who crossed out “Black Lives Matter” slogans and replaced them with “All Lives Matter” on the company walls. You’d think that a liberal like Zuckerberg would appreciate a message of discrimination being replaced with a message of inclusiveness, but I suppose that sort of thinking went out of fashion with Martin Luther King, Jr.
Given that Zuckerberg had to send out the reprimand to the entire company, this suggests that the slogan-writers have yet to be identified. Naturally, I hope they continue their efforts, but I can’t help being a little curious about who they are. Given the number of black Americans quietly fuming about the radical Black Lives Matter activists who try and speak on their behalf, I wouldn’t be surprised if they themselves were black.
You know, now that I think about it, wasn’t that Martin Luther King, Jr. fellow with all his inclusive rhetoric also black? Then again, as the University of California recently reminded us, he really is out of fashion in progressive circles.
The truth is, most of us prefer messages of unity over messages of division. That includes the 1 billion-plus people who use Zuckerberg’s platform, and who Zuckerberg appears strangely contemptuous of. Messages of unity bring people to the table to discuss solutions, whereas messages of division cause pointless standoffs.
Zuckerberg’s out-of-touch attempt to stamp his own, elitist politics on his employees is typical of Silicon Valley elites, whose hyper-progressive values are even more distant to those of ordinary Americans than the Washington, D.C. set.
But tyrannizing his employees isn’t the worst thing Zuckerberg’s done.
That would be his Orwellian pandering to the German government, whose disastrous immigration policies he recently praised as “inspiring.” Under Zuckerberg’s leadership, Facebook has become Germany’s lapdog, acting as the terrifying new Stasi of Angela Merkel, who is desperate to contain her citizens’ anger at her failed immigration policies. Facebook has promised to work with her government to monitor “anti-migrant hate speech” on the platform, which is another way of telling ordinary Germans that, once again, someone will be looking over your shoulder if your conversation gets too politically inconvenient.
Here’s what’s more troubling: Zuckerberg isn’t just doing this to appease an overbearing government: he wants to do it.
He’s a true believer in Merkel’s death-by-migration strategy. Indeed, he likes it so much that he wants to try it here in the U.S too. During a recent visit to Germany (ominously, Facebook executives are becoming an increasingly familiar sight in the country), the 31-year old CEO said that the U.S should “follow Germany’s lead” on immigration.
After the mass-rapes, the flyers helpfully advising immigrants not to be alarmed by gay people, and the migrant centre murders, Zuckerberg thinks we should “follow Germany’s lead.” Genius in business clearly doesn’t equate to genius in politics.
Should Americans be worried? Of course. Zuckerberg is a billionaire, and he’s only 31. He presides over the largest social network in the world, responsible for feeding information to over a billion people. He is — and will continue to be — one of the most influential men in the country.
And he’s not alone. His wealth, his influence, and his barmy progressive politics are shared by much of Silicon Valley, which despite its recent stock troubles, represents the future of the US economy. The academic Joel Kotin compares the leaders of big tech to the industrial magnates of the late-19th century, whose financial and political power dominated American government for decades. Zuckerberg is more than just a successful geek: he represents a new class of near-omnipotent plutocrat elites.
The days when Facebook was confined to college campuses are long gone. But it seems that Mark Zuckerberg’s politics, and much of Silicon Valley’s, remain there. With an increasing amount of the world’s wealth and communications under their control, America — and the world — should be worried.
You can follow Allum Bokhari on Twitter, add him on Facebook, and download Milo Alert! for Android to be kept up to date on his latest articles.
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