George Soros torching big tech has become something of an annual tradition at Davos: The liberal financier and philanthropist warned of a Facebook and Google-fueled dystopia in his speech at the World Economic Forum in 2018, and last year he demanded greater regulation of technologies that “pose a mortal threat to open societies.” (Hint-hint.) Soros blasted Facebook again at this year’s gathering, accusing the company of conspiring to help keep Donald Trump in the White House. “Facebook will work together to reelect Trump, and Trump will work to protect Facebook so that this situation cannot be changed,” Soros said in his address Thursday, Bloomberg reported. “It makes me very concerned for 2020.”
Describing Facebook’s modus operandi as maximizing profits “irrespective of what harm it may do to the world,” Soros suggested that it was developing a pact of sorts with the president to keep the grift going. “I think there is a kind of informal mutual assistance operation or agreement developing between Trump and Facebook,” he said. Facebook denied the claim, and Soros didn’t present any proof to support it.
While there’s no evidence that Mark Zuckerberg and Trump are in cahoots, it’s true that Facebook benefited Trump in 2016—just ask campaign manager Brad Parscale—and that Trump’s 2020 team is focused again on utilizing the platform in the lead-up to re-election. Meanwhile, the Facebook CEO has made overtures to the president and other conservatives, as several lawmakers on the left threaten Silicon Valley with tougher regulations and oversight.
Indeed, Zuckerberg’s decision to continue allowing false and misleading political ads on his platform, despite public pressure and shade from Jack Dorsey, was seen as a win for the president, whose campaign uses the site to feed his base big helpings of fear and outrage. As Andrew Bosworth, the company’s own former head of advertising, acknowledged in a recent internal memo, the platform likely helped Trump win the White House—and, despite his being “no fan” of the president, could very well do the same this go-round.
Soros, a bogeyman in many right-wing conspiracy theories shared on platforms like Facebook, may understandably see a conspiracy afoot given his personal experience. After he criticized Facebook in 2018, the company reportedly targeted him with a smear campaign, hiring a Republican-linked opposition research firm to suggest that Soros was behind a vast, anti-Facebook conspiracy. That scheme underscored the lengths to which Facebook will go to maintain its expansive power.
Trump, too, acknowledged Facebook’s clout in speculating this week that Zuckerberg might one day run for president. Such a prospect, Trump said, “wouldn't be too frightening.”
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