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"Mark Zuckerberg is facing the wrath of some liberals angry his political group indirectly bankrolled ads praising two senators for their support of the Keystone XL oil pipeline.\nLiberal frustration over the ads seem amplified by a feeling of betrayal. Their response is summed up best by a ThinkProgress story headlined \"Mark Zuckerberg\u2019s New Political Group Spending Big On Ads Supporting Keystone XL and Oil Drilling\" and a petition entitled \"FWD.us: Stop Running Ads Supporting Fossil Fuels.\"\nA forward-thinking futurist Silicon Valley-type ought to be a progressive, right? Well, it's not quite that simple. The truth of it comes in two parts. \nFirst, the ads themselves. They support two senators, Republican Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Democrat Mark Begich of Alaska (another ad for Marco Rubio focuses on immigration reform without mentioning energy policy). The ads were funded by two subsidiaries of FWD.us, Zuckerberg's group, each of which was set up to work with different sides of the political aisle.\nLiberals are upset mostly because both ads praise the lawmakers for their support of expanding drilling programs and particularly the Keystone XL pipeline. The pipeline would carry oil from Canada and the northern United States to the gulf region, and is opposed by many on the left. Some are also dismayed over FWD.us' strategy of supporting one Democrat and one Republican, but more on the political maneuvering of it later.\n\n\nWhile the ads mention the expansion of oil drilling among other praises for Graham and Begich, they're not solely focused on drilling or Keystone XL, as the above ThinkProgress headline and petition might lead one to believe. \nDigging a little further, we find the political rational for FWD.us. While the group's goals aren't limited to comprehensive immigration reform \u2014 they also include education reform, science funding, and as spokesperson Kate Hansen put it, \"policy changes needed to build the knowledge economy,\" immigration is certainly its highest priority policy goal at the moment. That's most clearly evidenced by Zuckerberg's recent op-ed pushing for immigration reform.\nAs the ThinkProgess piece and a Salon post criticizing it both correctly point out, neither Graham nor Begich's constituencies support immigration reform. For FWD.us, it makes good political sense to give those senators an offer: Vote with us on our core issue, and we'll contribute to ads protecting you from the wrath of conservative voters who aren't on board the immigration reform train.\nThat brings us to Zuckerberg himself. It's unclear why liberals and progressives should see him as one of the flock. Zuckerberg has met with President Barack Obama to discuss the technology sector and job creation, but the relationship hasn't blossomed into anything beyond that. \nHis first major political move \u2014 hosting a fundraiser for Republican Governor Chris Christie \u2014  gives cause for the opposite view, though Christie is more centrist than other Republicans on the national stage, certainly including Graham. \nZuckerberg's follow-up, launching a pro-immigration PAC, seems progressive on the surface, but can be explained in the context of business: Facebook and other American technology companies have an interest in being able to easily attract the world's top talent to come to work in the United States. \nAnd that's where Zuckerberg's politics ultimately lie: not necessarily on one side of the aisle or another, but in Facebook itself.\nImage via Justin Sullivan/Getty Images"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://mashable.com/2013/05/01/zuckerberg-liberal-conservative/>