The well-timed news dump is a familiar tactic for Facebook, which announced on a Friday in September that 50 million accounts had been affected in its latest hack, and released an independent report completed in October about how Facebook had been used to incite violence and ethnic cleansing against Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar on November 5, the day before midterm elections. That Facebook employed a similar tactic in this instance seems to suggest Zuckerberg sees little merit in changing the company’s ways.

Throughout this scandal, Zuckerberg’s near-absolute power has been on full display. Zuckerberg owns the majority of the voting rights to Facebook thanks to a dual-class structure that prioritizes certain shares over others, and there’s no existing regulatory framework in place to force a check on Facebook’s power—nor, as my colleague William D. Cohan reported earlier this week, does there seem to be an appetite for one. Gone is contrite Zuckerberg, who was apologetic to lawmakers when he testified on Capitol Hill in April; in his place is a Zuckerberg who described the Times story as “bullshit” to staff, and who earlier this year made what amounted to a declaration of martial law.

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