Mark Zuckeberg Rejects “America First”, Calls For Global Community

Hot on the heels of retailers who have halted sales of Ivanka Trump’s clothing line in protest against Trump (and free marketing buzz), the tech “resistance” against Trump got its lead from Facebook CEO Mark Zuckeberg who on Thursday posted a lengthy note “rebuking isolationist “America First” sentiment, and touting the merits of globalization and a “global community” working for innovation and progress.”

In short, the CEO of the “social network”, whose business model is predicated upon uninhibited globalization allowing advertisers to reach into every corner of the world with 3 second video clips, is calling for a global government. Not all that surprising.

As the Daily Beast, which first reported about Zuckerberg’s post, summarizes:

Discouraged by the underlying suspicion of foreign entities, as seen during the 2016 election and the rise of President Trump, Zuckerberg wrote that he wants to refocus Facebook on helping people come together across borders.

“We have to build a global community that works for everyone. I really don’t have much doubt that this is the right direction to go in the long term.” Part of his goal, he wrote, is to make Facebook a global community that is supportive, safe, informed, civically engaged, and inclusive.

Some more excerpts from Zuckerberg’s sermon for globalization:

On our journey to connect the world, we often discuss products we’re building and updates on our business. Today I want to focus on the most important question of all: are we building the world we all want?

History is the story of how we’ve learned to come together in ever greater numbers — from tribes to cities to nations. At each step, we built social infrastructure like communities, media and governments to empower us to achieve things we couldn’t on our own.

Today we are close to taking our next step. Our greatest opportunities are now global — like spreading prosperity and freedom, promoting peace and understanding, lifting people out of poverty, and accelerating science. Our greatest challenges also need global responses — like ending terrorism, fighting climate change, and preventing pandemics. Progress now requires humanity coming together not just as cities or nations, but also as a global community. 

This is especially important right now. Facebook stands for bringing us closer together and building a global community. When we began, this idea was not controversial. Every year, the world got more connected and this was seen as a positive trend. Yet now, across the world there are people left behind by globalization, and movements for withdrawing from global connection. There are questions about whether we can make a global community that works for everyone, and whether the path ahead is to connect more or reverse course.

This is a time when many of us around the world are reflecting on how we can have the most positive impact. I am reminded of my favorite saying about technology: “We always overestimate what we can do in two years, and we underestimate what we can do in ten years.” We may not have the power to create the world we want immediately, but we can all start working on the long term today. In times like these, the most important thing we at Facebook can do is develop the social infrastructure to give people the power to build a global community that works for all of us.

There are many of us who stand for bringing people together and connecting the world. I hope we have the focus to take the long view and build the new social infrastructure to create the world we want for generations to come.

With the seal of criticism now official broken, we anticipate more tech CEOs will soon join the “resistance” with even louder, more dramatic statements of opposition to Trump’s policies.