Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg — whom I'd be inclined to call beleaguered if it weren't for the willfully monotonous way in which he's weathered all of his company's scandals over the last two years — went to D.C. this week to mend some fences. Though he did not participate in the public hearing held by the Senate Commerce Committee on Wednesday about tackling extremism on social media, he did take meetings with many lawmakers, and on Thursday, met with Trump himself.
A spokesperson for Facebook confirmed to Axios that Zuck "had a good, constructive meeting with President Trump at the White House," and Trump took a rare break from Twitter to post the photo below on his Facebook account — though it was also cross-posted to Twitter.
The meeting was unannounced, and it's not totally clear what they talked about — though you'd better believe Trump had to squeeze in some of the bullshit he believes about conservatives being "shadow-banned" and whatever. Zuck may have tried point out that Fox News is the most dominant news publisher on Facebook, with its page regularly smoking the "lame-stream media" in terms of user engagement. Perhaps Trump asked Zuck what it's like to run a company that actually makes money.
The picture really says it all, though: There's Zuck, swallowing his pride, barely concealing his contempt, hoping against hope he can through 15 or 20 minutes without laughing or screaming.
But, there I go ascribing normal human emotion to a being who seems at least two-thirds automaton. He was instructed by Sheryl to go kiss the ring, and he did.
As Fox News was crowing yesterday, Zuck also met with Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley and allegedly admitted that there was some kind of bias in a recent controversy surrounding an anti-abortion group — the company was dinged by activists for telling the group Live Action that the statement "abortion is never medically necessary" is factually incorrect.
Zuckerberg also sat down with Commerce Committee member Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Washington) on Wednesday to discuss some online privacy legislation that she is drafting, and he had dinner with a group of senators on Wednesday evening.
Related: FBI Seeks Contractor To Harvest Facebook and Twitter Data To Identify Potential Shooters, Terrorists