You probably saw that Zuck was on Rogan the other day.

I didn't watch the actual interview yet, but I have read all kinds of excerpts about it, e.g., this one talking about how censorship at Facebook was terrible because of the Biden admin, and this one which excerpts a bunch of anti-woke policy change at Meta, and another one shit-talking Apple.

Two things are notable to me about this. Both are about politics.

First, it's clear that Zuck is energetically bending the knee to Trump and his water-carriers, currying favor in all the right ways. Zuck wants less regulation on AI, he wants less oversight on moderation, he wants less culpability for lawsuits, he wants Apple to let him track users more aggressively, and god knows what else he wants. So he's sending the right signals in hopes of getting those things to happen.

The second thing is that this is politics, now. This is what lobbying looks like. I don't mean that Rogan is a kingmaker, and has the most important media channel in the country, although that's probably true. I mean that instead of Nixon going to China, now Zuck is going to Rogan, just as Andreessen did. The dynamics of modern power are overlays on the official institutions. That was always true; but it's true now to larger degree and in a different way.

It's weird and unsettling to watch the masters of the universe ply this trade in public.