Meta Nukes DEI Program; "Morale For Queer Staff In Shitter"; Zuckerberg Joins Joe Rogan Podcast

Days after Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg eliminated "politically biased" fact-checkers—and on the same day his Joe Rogan podcast episode was dropped—Business Insider leaked an internal memo revealing that Meta dialed back its diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts.

"The legal and policy landscape surrounding diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts in the United States is changing," Janelle Gale, vice president of human resources at Meta, wrote in the memo, adding, "The Supreme Court of the United States has recently made decisions signaling a shift in how courts will approach DEI."

Gale pointed out, "The term "DEI" has also become charged, in part because it is understood by some as a practice that suggests preferential treatment of some groups over others." 

Meta is the latest mega-corporation to roll back toxic DEI initiatives, following Walmart and McDonald's.

Over a year ago, Robby Starbuck's campaign to end DEI in corporate America ignited this trend. 

The tides have turned in corporate America, and the reelection of Donald Trump will accelerate and ensure Marxist DEI initiatives are replaced with meritocracy (not just in corporate America - but across the government and the military).

Here's Gale's full memo (courtesy of Business Insider):

Hi all,

I wanted to share some changes we're making to our hiring, development and procurement practices. Before getting into the details, there is some important background to lay out:

The legal and policy landscape surrounding diversity, equity and inclusion efforts in the United States is changing. The Supreme Court of the United States has recently made decisions signaling a shift in how courts will approach DEI. It reaffirms longstanding principles that discrimination should not be tolerated or promoted on the basis of inherent characteristics. The term "DEI" has also become charged, in part because it is understood by some as a practice that suggests preferential treatment of some groups over others.

At Meta, we have a principle of serving everyone. This can be achieved through cognitively diverse teams, with differences in knowledge, skills, political views, backgrounds, perspectives, and experiences. Such teams are better at innovating, solving complex problems and identifying new opportunities which ultimately helps us deliver on our ambition to build products that serve everyone. On top of that, we've always believed that no-one should be given - or deprived- of opportunities because of protected characteristics, and that has not changed.

Given the shifting legal and policy landscape, we're making the following changes:

• On hiring, we will continue to source candidates from different backgrounds, but we will stop using the Diverse Slate Approach. This practice has always been subject to public debate and is currently being challenged. We believe there are other ways to build an industry-leading workforce and leverage teams made up of world-class people from all types of backgrounds to build products that work for everyone.

• We previously ended representation goals for women and ethnic minorities. Having goals can create the impression that decisions are being made based on race or gender. While this has never been our practice, we want to eliminate any impression of it.

• We are sunsetting our supplier diversity efforts within our broader supplier strategy. This effort focused on sourcing from diverse-owned businesses; going forward, we will focus our efforts on supporting small and medium sized businesses that power much of our economy. Opportunities will continue to be available to all qualified suppliers, including those who were part of the supplier diversity program.

• Instead of equity and inclusion training programs, we will build programs that focus on how to apply fair and consistent practices that mitigate bias for all, no matter your background.

• We will no longer have a team focused on DEI. Maxine Williams is taking on a new role at Meta, focused on accessibility and engagement.

What remains the same are the principles we've used to guide our People practices:

1. We serve everyone. We are committed to making our products accessible, beneficial and universally impactful for everyone.

2. We build the best teams with the most talented people. This means sourcing people from a range of candidate pools, but never making hiring decisions based on protected characteristics (e.g. race, gender etc.). We will always evaluate people as individuals.

3. We drive consistency in employment practices to ensure fairness and objectivity for all. We do not provide preferential treatment, extra opportunities or unjustified credit to anyone based on protected characteristics nor will we devalue impact based on these characteristics.

4. We build connection and community. We support our employee communities, people who use our products, and those in the communities where we operate. Our employee community groups (MRGs) continue to be open to all.

Meta has the privilege to serve billions of people every day. It's important to us that our products are accessible to all, and are useful in promoting economic growth and opportunity around the world. We continue to be focused on serving everyone, and building a multi-talented, industry-leading workforce from all walks of life.

*   *   * 

Earlier, Joe Rogan dropped a podcast featuring Zuck. 

Zuck seems to be trying to get on the right side of history...

Watch the full episode: 

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Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg's announcement to nuke "politically biased" fact-checkers and replace them with "Community Notes similar to X" has caused internal chaos among Meta employees, according to internal chats obtained by 404 Media and interviews with five current employees.

On Tuesday morning, Zuckerberg said in a video posted on Facebook, "We're going to get back to our roots and focus on reducing mistakes, simplifying our policies and restoring free expression on our platforms," adding, "More specifically, we're going to get rid of fact-checkers and replace them with Community Notes similar to X, starting in the US."

Meta stated, "We're getting rid of a number of restrictions on topics like immigration, gender identity and gender that are the subject of frequent political discourse and debate." 

404 Media cited Meta's internal workplace chats that showed how the sweeping overhaul of Meta's moderation policies was enough to trigger some staff members: 

Five current Meta employees spoke to 404 Media and said that many Meta employees are furious about the changes, an assessment that appears to be accurate based on screenshots of several internal threads obtained by 404 Media.

"It's total chaos internally at Meta right now," one current employee told 404 Media.

"The entire thread of comments shared is dissent toward the new policy, save for one leader repeating Zuckerberg talking points. I'd call the mood shock and disbelief," they added. "It's embarrassment and shame that feels self-inflicted, different than mistakes the company has made in the past."

"No one is excited or happy about these changes. And obviously the employees who identify as being part of the LGBTQ+ community are especially unhappy and feel the most unsupported in this," another employee told 404 Media. "A small number of people are taking time off and are sharing that they are considering leaving the company due to this change."

"Morale of fellow queer employees is in the absolute shitter, surprising no one," a third employee told 404 Media.

Here are more comments about distraught staff from Meta's internal workplace chats:

• I find it very hard to understand how explicitly carving out which groups of marginalized people can have what we otherwise classify hate speech directed at them will be beneficial for the communities we hope to build on our platforms."

• "This change is unacceptable on all levels."

• "Someone went into this policy and not only removed protection, they actually *doubled down* and made it explicitly okay. Absolutely wild."

• "I had to reread the policy language many times to believe what I was seeing—a very clear statement that we're okay with people attacking others based on their sexual orientation or gender identity. I cannot begin to fathom why we think this is acceptable or helpful to our community and our company's mission. I've never felt so strongly that we're on the wrong side of history. This is going to cause so much harm. Please reconsider this change."

• "When I first joined this company, people would criticize me for working here all the time. I defended y'all time and time again, always anchoring that in the end we do try our best even if it doesn't work out sometimes - but this? appalling."

• "I think it's clear that the policy team is not open to any feedback here and is committed to an ideological project that sacrifices some of our communities in order to achieve their goal," one employee wrote. "Just call me a tranny and close the discussion here. At least it would be honest."

Zuck should take a page from Elon Musk's Twitter playbook and significantly reduce Meta's workforce.

Unhappy employees complaining about 'free speech' pose a massive liability. Someone needs to tell these woke employees the era of woke censorship is winding down.