Whether the Texas teams’ move will be more than symbolic is unclear. Common sense suggests that if someone in California has expressed some sort of political preference, moving them to Texas is unlikely to change their views immediately.

In the same town hall call, company leadership described the move to Texas as an attempt to solve California’s vision problem. That reasoning frustrated employees, who believed Meta was harming its workforce to appease Trump, three staffers told WIRED. Meta and Trump stay in litigation in a federal court in northern California for the temporary suspension of his account following the January 6, 2021 riots at the US Capitol. Trump alleged that his constitutional right to free speech was being violated. Zuckerberg recently met with Trump at his Mar-a-Lago Club in Florida to settle the case, according to Wall Street Journal.

This week, Meta revealed plans to cut 5 percent of its workforce starting next month. The company said it plans to fill the positions throughout the year—a move that could see more employees hired in Texas. Following Meta’s decision last week to close its diversity, equity and inclusion program, there are no targets for hiring historically underrepresented groups.

Last week’s changes to the rules on hate speech allowed users to post more criticism, including about gender and ethnicity. During Rogan’s podcast, Zuckerberg said that users will now be able to highlight issues such as whether they should serve in combat roles in the military. Some employees warn that Meta is now supporting the spread of misogyny and bigotry in its services, according to two of the workers.

In a town hall call with employees, one executive defended the policy changes by saying they would open the door to more views, such as calling men lazy on Facebook without ‘y fear of being censored, according to an employee who attended.

In terms of execution, Meta is slow its current fact-checking programlimiting the use of automated filters to suppress allegedly offensive posts, and promoting more political content in newsfeeds.

On Tuesday, 12 civil rights advocacy groups said they have advised Meta over the years. wrote the company to express “grave concern” over the revised policies. “These changes are harmful for free expression because they subject members of protected groups to more attacks, harassment, and harm, driving them away from Meta services, harming relationships dialogue, eliminating points of view, and silencing dissent and often censored voices,” wrote the group, which includes the Center for Democracy & Technology, the Human Rights Campaign, and the National Black Justice Collective.

In the security and integrity town hall, management does not commit to continuing to publish statistics about the gender and racial makeup of the company’s employees. “It’s giving up in the worst way,” said one.

Individually, some managers have told their teams that they plan to continue to push for diversity hiring, according to three employees.

Additional reporting by Steven Levy.