Last week, Mark Zuckerberg launched a rapid policy turnaround — from Facebook’s DEI initiatives to recommended political content on Threads and Instagram — and capped the week off with a nearly three-hour interview on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast. It reads like what some users are calling a transparent effort to dance in preparation for a new political reality in the U.S. He doesn’t seem too intimidated by this assumption either: Just last month, Zuckerberg donated $1 million to Trump’s inaugural fund, and on Rogan’s podcast, released Friday, he said he is “optimistic” about President-elect Donald Trump because “he just wants America to win.”
It was such a busy week for Meta that even Zuckerberg’s most die-hard news fans might have missed some of his transformative decisions. Here’s a rundown of all the changes a man with a net worth of over $200 billion made to one of the world’s most powerful and influential tech companies just a week before Trump took office.
The fact checkers are out
Zuckerberg is following in the footsteps of MAGA X backer Elon Musk in ditching fact-checkers in favor of community annotations. He announced on Tuesday that “it is time to return to our roots around free expression” by “simplifying our policies and focusing on reducing errors”. The decision was met with incredulous – though expected – reactions from civil and human rights organisations. As Senior Press Counsel and Director of Digital Justice and Civil Rights Nora Benavidez said in a press release, “Content moderation has never been a tool to suppress free speech; it’s a principle that the platforms themselves developed to to promote dialogue and protect the truth for users.”
Meta drops fact-checking on community records ahead of Trump’s second term
He defended his decision on Rogan’s podcast by saying he used fact-checkers that “were very biased” and claimed his company’s fact-checking process was “something out 1984It is an extraordinary comparison to a book written by a democratic socialist and member of the anti-Stalinist left. It makes you think – has Zuckerberg read the book?
Hate speech is included
Meta decided to lift bans on some hate speech on its platforms. Under these new guidelines, Meta platforms will allow users to post content that calls women property, refers to specific ethnic groups as “filth” and claims that gay and trans people are “mentally ill,” despite the APA’s statement 52 years ago that homosexuality is not a mental illness, for example. Users can compare protected characteristics, including “race, ethnicity, national origin, disability, religion, caste, sexual orientation, sex, gender identity and serious illness” with inanimate objects, property and diseases. The platform will also not take action against posts that argue in favor of discrimination based on gender and sexual orientation.
Fury over Meta’s relaxed hate speech policies: ‘I really think this is a precursor to genocide’
“We allow claims of mental illness or abnormality when based on gender or sexual orientation, given the political and religious discourse on transgenderism and homosexuality and the common non-serious use of words like ‘queer,'” writes Meta. A spokesperson told CNN in a statement that Meta will still ban some swearing and attacks and enforce the remaining bullying, harassment and violence policies.
Mashable’s Speed of Light
DEI initiatives have come out
For some reason, Zuckerberg decided to end diversity, equity and inclusion efforts, according to an internal memo obtained by Axios on Friday. Janelle Gale, Meta’s vice president of human resources, wrote the memo and said Meta would still assemble “cognitively diverse teams, with differences in knowledge, skills, political views, backgrounds, perspectives and experiences,” but would no longer offer equality and inclusion. training. As the New York Times reported, the company “eliminated its chief diversity officer role, ended diversity hiring goals that required hiring a certain number of women and minorities, and said it would no longer prioritize businesses owned of minorities when hiring salespeople.”
DEI’s Meta programs have ended, the company says
“The legal and political landscape surrounding diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts in the United States is changing. The United States Supreme Court has recently issued decisions that signal a shift in how courts will approach DEI,” the memo says, according to Axios. “It reaffirms long-standing principles that discrimination should not be tolerated or promoted on the basis of inherent characteristics. The term ‘DEI’ has also become loaded, in part because it is understood by some to be a practice that suggests preferential treatment of some groups over others.” .”
Tampons are out
According to the New York Times, facility managers were instructed to remove tampons from men’s bathrooms at Meta’s offices in California, Texas and New York. Meta previously provided this for non-binary and transgender employees who use the men’s room. As Katie Notopoulos, a technology reporter for Business Insider, wrote in Bluesky, it’s a clear attempt at virtue signaling.
“Maybe it’s only ever used by a handful of employees, but work that the facilities team has to remove,” she wrote. “For example, it took manual labor and coordination in 3 offices to do this.”
Messenger’s trans and nonbinary themes are out
Speaking of virtue signaling, Meta also deleted trans and nonbinary topics on its Messenger app this week, 404 Media first reported. These themes are a fun way to decorate your chats – a “love” of them turns them pink, for example. Trans and non-binary topics turned the colors of conversation in line with the trans or non-binary flags of pride. It’s hard to imagine a reason why these might have been disabled beyond an attempt to match other new anti-LGBTQ policies.
Political speech on Instagram and Threads is on
Adam Mosseri, head of Instagram and Threads, announced Thursday that the platforms will once again recommend political content to users. You can adjust your political content control to less, standard and more, but the default will be standard. While some users are happy to have the policy back on the platform, they are concerned about the timing of the removal of the fact checkers. It’s a stark departure from his March 2024 approach of distancing himself from political content.
Instagram and Threads will now recommend political content
“Our goal is to present policy recommendations in a responsive and personalized way, meaning more for people who want this content and less for people who don’t,” Mosseri posted on Threads about the decision. . “Our plan is to continue to listen to feedback, learn and iterate over the coming months.”
Dana White is in
On Monday, Meta announced that Dana White, the famous Trump ally and president and CEO of the Ultimate Fighting Championship, would be joining its board of directors — another move the Washington Post highlighted. “could be seen as Zuckerberg’s latest maneuver to improve ties with Trump.” White was joined by John Elkann, billionaire CEO of investment company Exor and Executive Chairman of Ferrari and Stellantis, and Charlie Songhurst, a technology investor. The announcement comes a week after Nick Clegg, the former leader of the UK’s Liberal Democrats, announced he was stepping down as Meta’s policy chief.
