The Ministry of Empowerment

Fuck you Facebook. That was the first thought I had when I woke up this morning. Followed by: What ministry is Mark Zuckerberg volunteering to manage for the dictators of the world? All I could think of is how Orwell’s Ministry of Love is about hate. So what are we creating here? The Ministry of Empowerment to ensure the oppression of the most vulnerable? Lovely. But maybe you, dear reader, have a better Ministry name for their new organizational identity?

(Perfect image brought to you by AI, complete with too many fingers.)

This isn’t about free speech. It’s about allowing some people to harm others through vitriol – and providing the tools of amplification to help them.

This isn’t about shareholder value. It’s about a kayfabe war between tech demagogues vying to be the most powerful boy in the room. Just as Elon Musk doesn’t give a shit if X makes him a lot of money, Mark Zuckerberg has obtained enough wealth that he’s looking for other things. And since he owns a powerful tech platform with lock-in control, no one can oust him.

This isn’t even about appeasing the incoming Trump Administration. This is a Naomi Wolf-esque desire to be worshipped by someone, anyone. And if the people you originally aligned with are always pushing you to be better by challenging you, fuck them, you’ll align with the crooks and conmen and sociopaths.

As I lay in bed, I thought about Mugabe’s transformation from a disruptive revolutionary into a corrupt dictator responsible for genocide. I thought about Henry Ford and Joseph Stalin. And Darth Vader. Arrogant, confident men who wanted to change the world in pursuit of goodness only to embrace various versions of dark sides when the only way to be loved was to be feared.

Of course, there’s power in pretending like this is about free speech. Or good business. Or wise politics. Even to oneself. And I have to imagine that Mark Zuckerberg and those who are surrounding him have countless self-justifications for their actions. But I still cannot imagine sitting in a room writing a script for explicitly justifying hate speech and harassment directed at a specific population with religion as the explicit excuse. Who was in that room? How were they justifying the text they were creating and publishing? Did anyone recognize the echos of history here?

And let’s be honest. Countless tech workers are going to hold their nose and just keep moving forward, regardless of their own personal beliefs. After all, most are upper middle class people with families and mortgages who know that the tech industry is ageist and fear the loss of their jobs. They’ve watched so many around them struggle to find work after the layoffs. This is what economists who say that the economy is great miss. Many people are in jobs where they are underpaid for their skills – and many middle class people fear losing the job that they have because they expect that the next job will pay worse. Fear is powerful. And fear will keep Meta employees in place – at least the ones that the executives are most concerned about staying. Welcome to being conscripted into modern day warfare, brought to you by late stage capitalism.

This isn’t simply toxic masculinity. It’s also the toxicity of pursuing the latest variant of masculinity. To feel whole. To feel worthy. To feel powerful. To have a purpose. This doesn’t have to be toxic. But the problem with masculinity is that it’s socially constructed. And so when you’re comparing yourself to other demagogues, you need to out demagogue them. Forget a cage match between two bros. Instead, let’s put all of those vulnerable to the power of these men into the cage so that they can fight over who can squeeze the cage harder. This is what modern day conquering looks like. And to give yourself an edge, you need to ensure that others are weakened so that you can show your strength. All in the name of empowering free speech. And if Mark Zuckerberg’s pursuit of having his masculinity validated wasn’t glaringly obvious, he made it crystal clear when he asked a professional fighter known for domestic violence to be his boss not-boss.

Welcome to the Ministry of Empowerment.