Meta doesn’t stop at moderation changes. According to both Axios And The New York Timesthe company is also ending diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives. This includes removing diversity hiring goals, eliminating the chief diversity officer position and no longer prioritizing minority-owned businesses as suppliers, according to The times‘reporting.
When asked for comment on the end of DEI initiatives, Meta confirmed the reports were accurate.
Internally, the company is apparently basing its decision on a changing “legal and political landscape,” according to a memo to employees. Axios acquired.
“The United States Supreme Court has recently made decisions signaling a shift in how courts will approach DEI,” Janelle Gale, Meta’s vice president of human resources, said in the memo. “The term ‘DEI’ has also become controversial, in part because it is understood by some to be a practice suggesting preferential treatment of certain groups over others.”
The current Supreme Court is not really friendly toward systemic attempts to address issues of race, gender, and sexuality, but in the context of Meta’s other recent changes, it seems like there’s more going on than the fear of a possible lawsuit.
At the same time that Mark Zuckerberg announced that Meta was abandoning third-party fact-checking and changing the type of speech allowed on its platform, 404 media reports that the company removed trans and non-binary themes from Messenger and published posts announcing them. The company also added a Trump supporter and Dana White, CEO of the UFC to its board of directors this week, a confirmation of Zuckerberg’s continued fandom for the UFC, but also a signal that he is eager to listen to conservative voices. All of this seems to be less of a reaction to the current climate and more of how officials want to do business in the future.
