Billionaire Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg made headlines recently with his decision to divest from woke policies and investments in Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion programs.
A subsequent report noted that Zuckerberg seems to hold one former executive at the company largely responsible for the initial implementation of such a robust DEI agenda.
According to Fox Business:
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg reportedly cast the blame for the Facebook parent company’s diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) push on a longtime former executive at the tech giant.
The New York Times reported that as Zuckerberg moved to root out DEI programs at Meta – the parent company of Facebook, Instagram and Threads – he met with Stephen Miller, a key aide to President-elect Trump.
In that meeting, Zuckerberg blamed Sheryl Sandberg, the former chief operating officer at Meta who left the company in 2022, for an inclusivity initiative that sought to encourage employees to express themselves in the workplace, according to the Times report.
Zuckerberg also signaled to Miller that he had previewed changes to Meta’s policies and signaled that he wasn’t planning to get in the way of the incoming administration’s efforts to rollback DEI culture in corporate America, according to the report.
The response to Zuckerberg’s apparent embrace of more free-speech rules on Facebook, Instagram, and other Meta properties has been mixed, with many on the left upset by the move and a number of conservatives openly skeptical about his motives:
When pressured to remove content, Mark Zuckerberg caved and set an industry standard of censorship that made it even harder for others to stand up. History proved why protecting Free Speech matters, and we should be wary of Zuck’s change of heart. pic.twitter.com/pJ0xbcZOPt
— John Matze
(@john_matze) January 16, 2025
The left is so upset with Mark Zuckerberg for “restoring free expression” on Facebook. The liberal media is in full meltdown. Let them cry! I don’t care if Zuckerberg is a true believer of free speech or “expression,” as long as he stops the ridiculous censorship. I would have… pic.twitter.com/lC848FaZem
— Scott Smialkowski (@ScottSmialkowsk) January 9, 2025
Is anyone else finding it absolutely hilarious that Mark Zuckerberg is now trying to play the saint when it comes to “free speech”?
Here’s the guy who literally deleted my accounts not once, not twice, but FIVE TIMES, causing me to lose hundreds of thousands of followers in… pic.twitter.com/CAvwAcRaP2
— Dr. Ben Tapper (@DrBenTapper1) January 10, 2025
If conservatives needed a reason to be cautiously optimistic, just take a look at how upset the change made Joe Biden recently, as reported by The Hill:
“The whole idea of walking away from fact-checking as well as not reporting anything having to do with discrimination regarding…I find it to be contrary to American justice. Telling the truth matters,” Biden told reporters on Friday during an unexpected and rare question-and-answer session in the Roosevelt Room.
“I don’t know what that’s all about, it’s completely contrary to what America is about,” he added. “We want to tell the truth. The idea that a billionaire can buy something and say that they won’t fact check, and then you have millions of people reading it — I think it’s really shameful.”
Zuckerberg announced on Tuesday in a video that Meta would axe the fact-checking feature, along with altering other content-moderation policies, on its platforms, including Facebook, Instagram and Threads, which all host billions of people daily.
“First, we’re going to get rid of fact-checkers and replace them with community notes similar to X, starting in the U.S.” the tech billionaire said, adding that the 2024 presidential election was the main reason for making the decision.
Here’s some additional commentary about the company’s trajectory shift:
This is a Guest Post from our friends over at WLTReport.
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