Is Mark Zuckerberg a Visionary or a Criminal?

Mark Zuckerberg was a drunk college student when he created Facemash in 2003, a carbon copy of Hot or Not, a website that compares women’s pictures against each other with users voting on who is hotter. Zuckerberg initially wanted to compare women to farm animals on Facemash, according to his blog, but changed his mind to woman against woman. Now, there’s a man who thinks highly of women. Facemash launched. A few days later, it was shut down by Harvard University for breaching security, violating copyrights, and violating individual privacy.

Yikes.

That’s heavy shit, but we shouldn’t judge little drunk college Marky for his horrible ethics on one stupid, sexist, little project. It’s not like he built an entire empire on these practices. Or is this incident the truth behind who the King of Social Media actually is?

Zuckerberg the Visionary: Social Media King

Zuckerberg’s next creation after Facemash? TheFacebook. It was exclusive to Harvard before it grew to college students. Now? It fundamentally changed the way humans communicate. Social media isn’t all bad. Families and friends reconnecting. Finding common ground. Sharing life. Building communities. Dating. Organizing an event. On and on. It’s a useful tool when used in moderation and appropriately. I’d call that a massive leap for mankind. Impressive work by Zuckerberg.

He’s done a lot of great things in his life. Zuckerberg and wife, Priscilla Chan, created the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative for science, education, and community issues. That writing sounds like word salad bullshit, but maybe it's vague. The organization has committed over $7.22 billion in grants since it launched in December 2015. That’s a lot of money to give away. Another win for Zuckerberg.

Zuckerberg bet on mobile messaging in 2014 before many companies/investors did. He also publicly argued for cheaper, easier wireless internet access in developing countries and pushed open-source AI harder than most big-tech rivals. Meta’s tech has been used in healthcare and other applied settings and Linux Foundation Research found that open-source AI is widely adopted, cost-effective, and speeds tool development. Another universal and helpful tool partially funded by Zuckerberg.

That’s not a bad resume, but are those initiatives self-serving or meant to make a difference? Even if it was by accident, Zuckerberg has been fueling tech, innovation, and human connection and communication for the last two decades, but as things evolved from Facebook to Meta, the visionary picture gets blurry.

The King of Social Media

There’s no way Zuckerberg knew his Facebook idea would evolve into a huge empire. And when an empire grows too large, things begin to crumble. Unless, of course, there is a strong leader. For Meta, it’s Zuckerberg. Meta’s own annual report states:

“Mark Zuckerberg, our founder, Chairman, and CEO, is able to exercise voting rights with respect to a majority of the voting power of our outstanding capital stock and therefore has the ability to control the outcome of all matters submitted to our stockholders for approval…”

The buck stops with Zuckerberg at Meta, but in 2018 outside investors tried to change this by ending Facebook’s super-voting structure. It was a fuck you to Zuckerberg that ultimately failed. Zuckerberg retained control of his empire after a rebellion. Control freak, anyone? Instead of founder, chairman, and CEO, maybe we should call him King Marky. It’s less of a mouthful.

Sure, King Marky invented the product, but it is way bigger than a standard global company, considering the effects social media platforms have on humanity. Should we take Meta away from King Marky? Of course not, but King Marky, as Meta’s ultimate decision-maker, should have to answer for the multi-generational damage he’s already caused.

King Marky’s Apology Tour

In 2018, King Marky told Congress Facebook had not taken a broad enough view of its responsibility and that the mistake was his. Too bad it was a bunch of bullshit. Six years later, King Marky apologized publicly to families at a Senate hearing on child harm and sexual exploitation related to social media. Is the apology King Marky’s corporate version of thoughts and prayers? Because King Mark keeps apologizing for the same thing, all the way back since 2003, and nothing seems to change. One could argue that things are worse now. And it’s not like King Marky can blame anyone else for Meta’s refusal to put humanity over profits. He is, in fact, the King of Meta, and all its decisions, no?

Did King Marky mean his apology? Fuck no. In 2021, Reuters received leaked internal research that showed King Marky knew Instagram could harm teens’ mental health. Five fucking years ago. What did they do with the information? Tossed in a trash can. If it doesn’t help Meta grow, the data doesn’t matter. It might not be King Marky’s stated policy, but as his actions will show, it’s how King Marky operates his business.

Did you know the FTC secured a privacy settlement with a record $5 billion fine against Meta in 2019 during the Federal Trade Commission v. Meta Platforms, Inc. case? How about Meta’s shareholder privacy settlement worth $190 million in 2025?

He doesn’t always lose. King Marky did win an FTC antitrust breakup case in 2025 and has also won a fair number of other cases. I argue because many of the laws regulating social media were written before these platforms were even invented. That, and Meta specifically uses the First Amendment and Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996, to morph the organization into whatever it needs to be in the eyes of the law. Thankfully, the recent social media addiction trials in California and New Mexico have pierced the armor of these arguments, at least temporarily.

K.G.M. v. Meta Platforms, Inc.

During K.G.M. v. Meta Platforms, Inc. (social media addiction trial), King Marky repeatedly stated that Facebook and Instagram does not allow kids under thirteen on its platforms. Fair. Yet, jurors were shown an Instagram presentation from 2018 that said, “If we want to win big with teens, we must bring them in as tweens.”

What age are tweens? Nine to twelve years old? Is that under thirteen? Because if it is, that means King Marky is a liar.

This case also highlighted a 2016 email authored by King Marky that stated his company would “need to be very good about not notifying parents / teachers” about teens’ use of Facebook’s live videos feature. Don’t ask, don’t tell should be Facebook’s motto.

Meta also has materials that discussed acquiring children young, including tweens, researching children under thirteen, and creating an U13 segment that featured five-to-ten-year-olds to study. What the actual fuck. Children or meat bags with attention for sale? According to King Marky’s actions, every child is a future customer; let’s get ‘em while they’re young. Pedophilia? No, but King Marky turns a blind eye to it on his social media platforms. I mean, hey, people who have sex with children have money, too.

Operation MetaPhile (New Mexico Verdict)

New Mexico officials developed a months-long operation where undercover agents posed as children under the age of fourteen on Meta platforms to see if their fake profiles would be contacted by adults seeking child porn. It was called Operation MetaPhile, and it directly led to the $375 million penalty in the State of New Mexico ex rel. Raúl Torrez v. Meta Platforms, Inc. This brings into question, once again, about King Marky’s lies to the public through media about his platforms not allowing children on his social media sites.

Jurors saw internal documents and heard King Marky defend letting child social media users keep beauty filters because King Marky didn’t want to limit children’s expressions. Zuckerberg preferred reversing a ban on certain face filters while limiting exposure to users. This is because he believed the evidence showing the harm social media caused children wasn’t strong enough to warrant removing the filters. I wonder how King Marky can publicly explain that 2021 Facebook internal memo leak with all those stats about the harms of social media on children?

New Mexico officials also alleged King Marky failed to implement basic safety tools, like that silly little thing called age verification. The filing also included internal Meta material that included employee communications stating, “IG is a drug… We’re basically pushers.” The conversation further elaborates that users binge on Instagram and the decisions to get users addicted are being driven back by top-down directives. Top-down directives? Who’s on top again? King Marky! The ruler who said under oath that children aren’t allowed on his platforms!

Not only does King Marky’s Social Media Empire not stop children from succumbing to addiction and being exploited, it also hinders current investigations. The Guardian reports that the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) receives huge volumes of reports from Meta, and the social media platform cannot filter out unviable tips before forwarding them. Officers stated during the trial that the flood of poor-quality reports overwhelmed resources and at times left them unable to further investigate a case due to missing information.

“We get a lot of tips from Meta that are just kind of junk,” said Benjamin Zwiebel, a special agent with the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force Program in New Mexico, during his testimony in New Mexico’s trial against Meta.

King Marky is actively allowing AI-algorithms and bad business practices to clog up government agencies designed to protect children from harm. How many families will suffer an unimaginable loss or crimes because agents were busy dealing with inaccurate and ‘junk’ reports?

The jury in the case found Meta violated New Mexico’s consumer protection law, including 75,000 violations, and found Meta's conduct was unconscionable. Seventy-five thousand violations! That’s absurd! Who crossed the line leading to these violations? Meta, the company? Shareholders with limited voting power? Or the King of Social Media himself? Mark Zuckerberg.

King Marky - Visionary or Criminal?

After Harvard officials discovered Facemash in 2003, King Marky wrote to the university newspaper, “I understood that some parts were still a little sketchy and I wanted some more time to think about whether or not this was really appropriate to release to the Harvard community.”

That’s eerily similar to his apologies in 2018 and 2024, but his later ‘sorries' are more polished.

In 2018, during a Senate testimony, King Mark said (regarding the Cambridge Analytica scandal), “We didn't take a broad enough view of our responsibility, and that was a big mistake. It was my mistake, and I'm sorry.”

In 2024 during a Senate Judiciary child-safety hearing after being pressed to address parents in the room King Marky stated, “I'm sorry for everything you have all been through” and “No one should go through the things that your families have suffered.”

Is King Marky a visionary? Maybe he’s just a smart asshole who invented something useful before his natural personality took over. Is King Marky a criminal? Not according to United States law. Because in America, business executives are rarely, if ever, held accountable for the decisions they make. Companies are scumbag shields. Organizations are fined and Suits lose their jobs, but is that equal to the multi-generational damage Meta Suits have unleashed onto the world? Excuse me, I shouldn’t blame Meta Suits. Because, as we know, there’s one man who’s in charge of Meta. The question is whether King Marky will ever be held accountable for his actions.