BOOK: Mark Zuckerberg Made Secret Deal With Trump

The Daily Beast reports:

During a meeting in Washington, D.C. in 2019, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg agreed to not fact-check political posts if the Trump administration would steer clear of any “heavy-handed regulations,” venture capitalist Peter Thiel told an associate, according to a new book.

The associate alleged that at the meeting—which was also attended by Thiel, former President Trump, Jared Kushner, and their spouses—Zuckerberg essentially promised to champion “state-sanctioned conservatism,” The Contrarian: Peter Thiel and Silicon Valley’s Pursuit of Power says.

New York Magazine reports:



Zuckerberg denied that there had been any deal with Trump, calling the notion “pretty ridiculous,” though Facebook’s actions in the run-up to the election would make the denial seem not entirely credible.

During Black Lives Matter protests, Twitter hid a post by the president that seemed to condone violence: “When the looting starts, the shooting starts”; Face­book allowed it.

In the days leading up to the January 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, Facebook mostly ignored calls to limit the spread of “Stop the Steal” groups, which claimed that Trump had actually won the election.