“It is one thing to say that we want to make a pleasant environment for everyone in companies and another to say that masculinity is bad and I think that, culturally, we have leaned towards that side of the spectrum,” Mark Zuckerberg explained in a recent podcast with the famous Joe Rogan. “I grew up with three sisters, no brothers, and now I have three daughters, no sons, I have been surrounded by women all my life, and I think there is something in masculine energy that is good,” added the Facebook founder. “There is already a lot of it in society, of course, but I think that having a culture that celebrates aggression a little more has its own merits, it has been a positive experience for me to meet with my colleagues and hit each other a little,” he said.
This long explanation and defense of masculine energy in his talk with Rogan, the controversial podcasterconservative, is part of the movement of rapprochement towards the new administration of President Trump. Meta has eliminated its external verification system, its moderation in the US will be much more lax and will allow offensive comments against gays, trans people and women. In addition, the company has eliminated its diversity, equality and inclusion policies in favor of minorities. The new President Trump has described all of these changes as “excellent.” Zuckerberg will have a prominent role next Monday at Trump’s inauguration as president, alongside Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos.
His time on Rogan’s podcast is another way to stage this change of direction. After years of pretending to follow the opinions or guidelines of Democrats, Zuckerberg has decided that it was best to change sides without hesitation. Meta faces regulatory complications in the US, possible fines in Europe and stands to gain a lot from a likely ban on TikTok in the US. All of these factors are financial benefits from a change in internal policies at the company and how it moderates content, where the Politics will once again have a main role.
“The corporate culture has become kind of more weakened, and I only felt it when I got more into martial arts, which is still much more masculine,” Zuckerberg continues on Rogan’s show. “It’s one of those things that I hadn’t experienced and I was wondering, ‘oh where have I been all my life.’ “It lit up a part of my brain that feels good, it’s a part of the puzzle that should have been there, it also happens with hunting,” adds Zuckerberg, in a string of tastes that fit with the cultural current of the new American government.
Zuckerberg takes advantage of his interview with Rogan to tell of his kind of epiphany also in other fields, such as in the content moderation of his social networks: “I was not very involved in content policies during the first ten years of the company,” says Zuckerberg . Then came two events that changed everything: Trump’s election and Brexit in 2016 and the pandemic in 2020. “That’s when people started asking for censorship based on ideology,” he says.
Proof that content moderation is much more complex appeared in a recent report from AI Forensics, an organization that investigates big networks’ algorithms: In 2024, Meta allowed more than 3,300 ads with pornographic content on its platforms, including Facebook and Instagram. When those same images were uploaded as normal content they were removed, but as advertisements they did not have the same standard. With the emergence of artificial intelligence, it will be increasingly possible to find holes in which to sneak traps or messages into large networks.
