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Meta's memo to employees rolling back DEI programs

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Re: Meta's memo to employees rolling back DEI programs

#11

Post by erulabs »

I think it's somewhat important to understand meta and its products are _not_ tech products. Outside of React and llama and the like, Meta is not building for or speaking to the tech community. If what they do or say sounds like populism, it's because it is. It can be ham fisted, because the majority of people are only barely paying attention, and the majority of people is who facebook wants to please.

Like politics, things feel dumb and ham-fisted, because they are. They're playing at winning wide swaths of billions of people, and the majority of people aren't paying attention, so hypocrisy doesn't register as well as just being vaguely aligned with what's popular.

I don't mean any of this in an derogatory "unwashed masses" sort of way, it's just how it is.

Re: Meta's memo to employees rolling back DEI programs

#12

Post by returntocollege »

JohnMakin wrote: post #3

I'm a PoC, and stuff like this reads extremely bizarre to me. On the one hand, you're acknowledging rolling back DEI initiatives in part because of the "political landscape," and that you were already committed to diversity on your teams. That's all well and good, but then, why the initiative in the first place? It seems to me you're doing at least 1 thing here, and acknowledging that such DEI program was performativ…

[dead]

Re: Meta's memo to employees rolling back DEI programs

#14

Post by mossTechnician »

spondylosaurus wrote: post #2

> We serve everyone. We are committed to making our products accessible, beneficial and universally impactful for everyone. The new(ly leaked) moderation guidelines might suggest otherwise...

Is this a reference to the changed TOS or something else?

The recent policy carve-out allowing "allegations of mental illness" towards LGBT people (but no other minority) definitely speaks to a lack of universality, but that's from Facebook itself: https://transparency.meta.com/policies/community-standards/h...

Re: Meta's memo to employees rolling back DEI programs

#15

Post by AtlasBarfed »

This comment is based upon n two assumptions:

1) Twitter has imploded, and is on the road to Myspace level relevance

2) that implosion is due to a removal of moderation

I'll try to keep it politically neutral. But this and other Facebook announcements means inexorable collapse is on the medium term horizon, because they mirror what Twitter did

These actions could possibly be done with social network circa early to mid 2010s.

But since the rise of massive online campaigns of disinformation or propaganda, and then rocket fueled by AI...

It means not only will left-wing people run away in droves, but then toxicity explodes and successive waves of moderates and apolitical people get driven away.

It's interesting because people seem to have forgotten what the word moderation means.

It's keeping out the extremes. In particular, the extremes of emotions. Which then cloud any sort of productive discussion.

Without moderation, especially with the organized ai and misinformation and other social Network phenomena, The pure outrage cycle while individually effective for posts, very rapidly makes the overall ecosystem completely intolerable.

Because one thing at the political extremes I would argue more strongly on the right but definitely on the left, is intolerance.

Re: Meta's memo to employees rolling back DEI programs

#16

Post by jsheard »

mossTechnician wrote: post #14
spondylosaurus wrote: post #2

> We serve everyone. We are committed to making our products accessible, beneficial and universally impactful for everyone. The new(ly leaked) moderation guidelines might suggest otherwise...

Is this a reference to the changed TOS or something else? The recent policy carve-out allowing "allegations of mental illness" towards LGBT people (but no other minority) definitely speaks to a lack of universality, but that's from Facebook itself: https://transparency.meta.com/policies/community-standards/h...

The Intercept leaked more detailed internal guidelines:

https://theintercept.com/2025/01/09/facebook-instagram-meta-...

Re: Meta's memo to employees rolling back DEI programs

#17

Post by jazzyjackson »

spondylosaurus wrote: post #2

> We serve everyone. We are committed to making our products accessible, beneficial and universally impactful for everyone. The new(ly leaked) moderation guidelines might suggest otherwise...

God save us if they're updating their KPI from "engagement" to "impact"

Re: Meta's memo to employees rolling back DEI programs

#18

Post by barbazoo »

jandrese wrote: post #9
JohnMakin wrote: post #3

I'm a PoC, and stuff like this reads extremely bizarre to me. On the one hand, you're acknowledging rolling back DEI initiatives in part because of the "political landscape," and that you were already committed to diversity on your teams. That's all well and good, but then, why the initiative in the first place? It seems to me you're doing at least 1 thing here, and acknowledging that such DEI program was performativ…

It only seems bizarre if you didn't consider DEI programs to be largely symbolic corporate puffery in the first place. For all of the hate they received from some political spheres they were largely just PR initiatives right from the start, especially in larger companies.

I'm curious, what gives you that kind of deep insight?

Re: Meta's memo to employees rolling back DEI programs

#19

Post by 650REDHAIR »

returntocollege wrote: post #12
JohnMakin wrote: post #3

I'm a PoC, and stuff like this reads extremely bizarre to me. On the one hand, you're acknowledging rolling back DEI initiatives in part because of the "political landscape," and that you were already committed to diversity on your teams. That's all well and good, but then, why the initiative in the first place? It seems to me you're doing at least 1 thing here, and acknowledging that such DEI program was performativ…

[dead]

Do you have any sources for that opening statement?
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