Television Review | The creator of Facebook seems to have had a strategy: cross the line and acknowledge everything with an apology

Facebook of the founder Mark Zuckerberg’s the story has many features typical of our time.

In the early years of the 21st century, the media takes an interest in a young Harvard student who has coded a little “with the road” in his student box. The students’ digital face book later develops into the king of social platforms, Facebook, and later Meta.

Zuckerberg becomes a celebrated technology guru, the youngest self-made super-individual who graces magazine covers and is made into Hollywood movies.

Little by little, we are starting to understand that Facebook has a wider meaning in the world than forging a mass for its founders and being a peephole for its users into the lives of old school friends. With trembling voices, they talk about the democratizing effect of social media and upheavals like the Arab Spring.

As the influence of Zuckerberg and social media grows, other shades also begin to appear in the picture. A recent British documentary Zuckerberg – King of Metaverse (2024) is critical.

of the 2010s as it progresses, the privacy protection of Facebook users raises more and more questions, as does the use of the platform to spread fake news and hate speech. The documentary highlights the 2016 US presidential election as a key turning point. At that time Donald Trump the campaign team used Facebook in an exceptional way.

Facebook users later explained that they did not believe that politicians would share content as outrageous as Trump did. Is it about blue eyes, stupidity or perhaps something else, the viewer wonders.

Zuckerberg’s – and Facebook’s – the strictest place so far came in 2018. It was accused of illegally handing over the data of 82 million users to the analytics company Cambridge Analytica, which cooperated with, among other things, the Trump campaign. The exchange rate plunged, five billion fines came crashing down from the dome, and Zuckerberg had to be heard by Congress.

In 2021, more revelations followed, among other things about how the company was well informed about the impact of the most harmful content on users. This time, to get out of the commotion, Facebook appropriately announced that it had changed its name to Meta. And the story continues.

About Zuckerberg and several, even critical, documentaries have been made about Facebook, in which the power and influence of both have been explored. Zuckerberg – King of Metaverse strives to create some kind of overall picture of everything. Interesting point, but most points of view have been heard before. Many see the problem of one person having too much power. Who would monitor Zuckerberg?

Despite its name, the documentary doesn’t get much out of Zuckerberg as a person. The byline states the familiar idea that power and mammon gained too young have emphasized a person’s unpleasant aspects.

Another explanation for arrogance can be found in the early years of Facebook. The documentary highlights the culture that flourished among financiers and technology companies in Silicon Valley, which included risk-taking and testing the limits. It was seen, for example, in Facebook’s initial tagline, “Fast movements and destruction”.

Aware crossing the line and making up for everything with an apology seems to have been the strategy with which Zuckerberg has led his company until these days.

Zuckerberg himself is not voiced in the documentary but in archive clips. In them, he solemnly declares how everything is about bringing people closer together. The central question of the documentary is: is it necessarily a good thing?

Zuckerberg – King of Metaverse, MTV Katsomo and MTV Katsomo +