Mark Zuckerberg was shut down by Joe Rogan in a landmark appearance on the world’s most popular podcast.
The Meta owner, who oversees social media platforms such as Facebook and Instagram as well as messaging service WhatsApp, sat down with the UFC commentator for a three-hour podcast released on Friday, Jan. 10 (full interview below).
Zuckerberg has sought to distance himself from his previous positions since the presidential election. He has removed third-party factcheckers from Facebook, instead replacing it with a community notes system akin to Elon Musk’s X. He has also rewritten platform guidelines on free speech, while appointing UFC president Dana White to Meta’s board of directors.
As he tries to rejuvenate his public image ahead of the Donald Trump administration, Zuckerberg has become more critical of Joe Biden’s presidency. On Friday, he accused the federal government of pushing a pro-vaccination agenda onto Meta during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“They pushed us super hard to take down things that were honestly true,” Zuckerberg said, adding that the administration also pushed his company to remove memes from the site. “They basically pushed us and said anything that says that vaccines might have side effects, you basically need to take down.”
Zuckerberg continued to defend his company throughout the interview with a particular focus on the future of Meta. However, when the conversation returned to vaccination, Zuckerberg said that he believed the vaccination push was a “good goal” even if he did not necessarily agree with the administration’s’ approach.
“I still think it’s good for more people to get the vaccine,” Zuckerberg said. “I’m not sure in that case how much of it [censorship] was like a personal political gain that they were going for. I think that they had a kind of goal that they thought was in the interests of the country. And the way they went about it, I think, violated the law.”
Rogan interjected, saying he believed there were “a bunch of problems” with the approach.
“There’s the emergency use authorization that they needed in order to get this pushed through. And you can’t have that without valid therapeutics being available. And so, they suppressed valid therapeutics. So, they’re suppressing real information that would lead to people being healthy and successful in defeating this disease,” Rogan said.
“And they did that so that they could have this one solution. And this was Fauci’s game plan. I mean, this is the movie Dallas Buyers Club. That’s Fauci in that movie. That was with the AIDS crisis. This is the exact same game plan that was played out with the COVID vaccine.”
“They pushed one solution, this only one, suppressed all therapeutics through propaganda, through suppressing monoclonal antibodies, like all of it. And that was done, in my opinion, for profit. And they did that because it was extremely profitable. The amount of money that was made was extraordinary during that time.”
The interview generated widespread debate on social media, with some praising Zuckerberg for criticizing the Biden administration.
Many, however, saw through his attempts at a self-rebrand.
