The Meta doesn’t stop at change in moderation. According to both Axios and The New York Timesthe company also pulled the plug on diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives. That includes removing diversity hiring goals, eliminating the position of chief diversity officer and no longer prioritizing minority-owned businesses as vendors, per The Times‘ reporting.
When asked to comment on the end of the DEI initiatives, Meta confirmed that the reporting was accurate.
Internally, the company apparently attributed the decision to a shifting “legal and policy landscape,” according to a memo to employees. Axios got it.
“The United States Supreme Court recently made decisions that mark a change in how courts approach DEI,” Janelle Gale, Meta’s VP of Human Resources said in the memo. “The term ‘DEI’ has also come under fire, in part because it is perceived by some as a practice that suggests preferential treatment of some groups over others.”
The current Supreme Court is not friendly at all to systematic attempts to address issues of race, gender and sexuality, but in the context of other recent changes at Meta, it seems that there is more going on than the company fearing a possible lawsuit .
At the same time Mark Zuckerberg announced that Meta was abandoning third-party fact-checking and changing what kind of speech it allowed on the platform, 404 Media reports that the company removed Trans and Non-binary themes from Messenger, and posts it made announcing them. The company also added Trump supporter and UFC CEO Dana White on its board this week, a confirmation of Zuckerberg’s ongoing UFC fandom but also a signal that it is eager to listen to conservative voices. It all seems to add up less in reaction to the current climate and more to the way people in charge want to do business going forward.