(READ: Zuckerberg Is Following the More Lucrative Path Elon Set as Predicted, but Should We Trust Him?)

As I wrote then, Musk has done all the hard work, now Zuckerberg can act safely in the same manner: 

I want to trust Zuckerberg's sudden turn to the light side, but as I said before, he's a very shrewd businessman. He had a very strong indication Trump would win, and as such, he began shifting his platform to match a Trump era. The thing is, it didn't get past me that he made these grand announcements after Trump's victory. Why didn't he do it before? 

Because it was too risky before. Now with Trump in office, the chances that American platforms are going to get screwed with is lessened, especially since Trump will likely move to protect Musk and X from foreign governments thanks to their closeness, and Zuck is going to want under that umbrella too. 

Zuck is following Musk's path because it's the safest and most lucrative, but he still hasn't done anything to put himself or his company on the line. In fact, it's the exact opposite. 

The question is, if Zuckerberg is honest, what can he do that would actually convince us that he's a changed man? I don't want to rule out that he is one. Many people change over the course of time due to personal experiences and disillusionment. 

Elon Musk is one of those people, but Musk put himself on the line, Zuck hasn't. 

So what can he do? Well, they'd have to be self-sacrificial things. For one, he'd have to give up the thing he appears to covet most, and that's control. 

He could start by dismantling Meta's ad targeting model, which would not be an easy thing for him to do because this is what he uses to do his data-collection. His ability to accurately target you with ads is a huge part of Meta's income. Why would this matter? Because his ad targeting model is also the thing that allows him to implement targeted censorship. If he drops that weapon, he'll have gone a long way in proving that his days of censoring you are over, and that he truly is a champion of free speech. 

This would cost him a lot of money, and he would have to find ways to make up for it (such as implementing a monetization system similar to Musk's that requires paid memberships), but this would actually lead me to believe he's sincere... but not totally. 

The other thing he could do is open-source Meta's algorithms, which is what he's used to control what is and isn't said on the platform. These algorithms are largely hidden away from the public and can be tweaked based on the demands of third party sources such as governments or corporations working with the platform. If Zuck opens those up for public scrutiny, it would be incredibly hard to hide censorship efforts from the public, meaning he would have to reduce his censorship efforts by leaps and bounds and be able to give good reasoning for any censoring his platforms do.

This would effectively be Zuck opening himself to the public for an incredible amount of accountability and scrutiny. Instead of him watching you, you'd now be watching him. 

Then there's the activism portion he could take part in. Musk didn't just put himself on the line financially, he did so personally. Musk fought for free speech by teaming up with Trump and helped to try to move America in the direction of freedom and prosperity through liberty-minded principles. If Trump had lost, there's no telling where Musk would have ended up. Musk himself noted that he's made a lot of enemies on the left with his actions, and a Trump loss would have likely resulted in his companies being hit hard by the government and lawsuits galore.  

If Zuck wants to be believed, he needs to put himself on the line like this. 

Zuck told Joe Rogan that during the days of the pandemic, the Biden admin would call his employees, screaming and yelling about various posts that damaged the left's narrative, especially about vaccines. When Zuck refused to censor satire and memes about it, the Biden administration utilized its power to investigate Meta's companies. 

I can believe him on this, but if Zuck wants us to believe he's changed thanks to moments like these, then he needs to actively push back against censorship efforts if and when they appear, even if they don't affect him. I'm not saying he needs to become free-speech Batman, but if and when a lawmaker or organization attempts to enforce some sort of censorship, he won't just resist, he'll risk and endure legal and regulatory retaliation while waving the flag of liberty and free speech. 

This means that he'll have to continue upholding these principles even well after the pendulum swings back to the left and things start getting a bit dicey for free speech politically. 

The first two he can do sooner rather than later, but the third is likely the most important, and will have to happen over time. 

Until he does any of these things, or others I haven't thought of, the people will probably not believe his sincerity, nor should they.