Under the Curls of Your Hair: Changes in Meta's Policies and Silicon Valley's Takeover of the White House
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.29397/reciis.v19i1.5033Keywords:
Social networks, Disinformation, Ideology, Surveillance capitalism, Digital regulationAbstract
The article examines recent changes in Meta’s policies, including the loosening of content moderation and the abandonment of fact-checking agencies. These transformations are placed within a broader context of Silicon Valley’s growing influence on U.S. politics, especially after Donald Trump’s election. It is argued that these changes are not merely reactions to competing platforms such as Elon Musk’s X but rather reflect a worldview shared by Big Tech companies, based on the principles of neoliberalism applied to the digital sphere and surveillance capitalism. In addition to analyzing the impacts of the spread of disinformation and extremist discourse, the text discusses the role of social networks in shaping political and social behavior. Finally, regulatory and technological alternatives are presented to mitigate society’s dependence on major digital platforms.
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