Amidst conflicting charges of "fake news" that helped elect President trump, and counter-charges that Facebook and most of Silicon Valley has a strong bias against conservatives, some of the tech region's elites are heading out to learn about the America they have for too long ignored.
The Trump voter safari
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is publicly documenting his travels across America on his personal Facebook page. Zuckerberg says he wants to visit all 50 states this year. He was most recently spotted at OvenBird, a local seafood restaurant in Birmingham, Alabama.
He later visited Bayou La Batre, the "seafood capital of the state," where he ate lunch with "fourth generation shrimper" Dominick Ficarino. While down south, he also scored a meeting with Alabama football coach Nick Saban. Zuckerberg said he also visited with Anthony Ray Hinton, a former death-row inmate later exonerated.
Zuckerberg isn't the only one. Venture capitalist Sam Altman -- who very publicly states he did not vote for Donald Trump -- claims that he spent the past few months traveling the country talking to 100 Trump supporters.
On his personal blog Altman says he "went to the middle of the country, the middle of the state, and talked to many online." Altman "highly recommends" others go out and do the same -- as he was "definitely surprised" by the diversity of the Trump supporters he met.
Are these efforts well-meaning or deeply offensive? It seems a bit of both.
One of the country's most biased regions
But perhaps instead of heading out on the road in search of the mythical Trump voter, Silicon Valley -- particularly it's richest and most powerful -- can stay at home and fix themselves. For example, Altman readily admits that one of the Trump supporters he talked to actually works in Silicon Valley.
She demanded Altman not use her real name because if the rest of the company knew she voted for Trump, she'd be fired.
As I have previously documented, Silicon Valley is overwhelmingly anti-Trump, with the Hillary Clinton campaign receiving about 95% of all tech company donations. Many in the area have demanded that tech CEOs refuse to even advise the Trump administration, so entrenched is the bias. That's not helpful. Silicon Valley needs to shed its own bias if it wants to have a truly open dialogue with the rest of America.
