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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

#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 performative in the first place. This kind of announcement seems extremely self defeating and unlikely to please anyone and piss off just about anyone that cares about this in any way shape or form, on either side.

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

#5
That title image looks like it is from the set of a sitcom starring Mark Zuckerberg.

DEI initiatives have always been a dog and pony show, not a thing executives have ever truly cared about and they are now in a political environment where they can show what they believe in. People will learn the hard way these companies have never cared about you.

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

#6

> 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...

Apparently they consider platforming hate speech to be beneficial because it could bolster sympathy for the groups being attacked. I wish I was joking.

https://www.platformer.news/meta-new-trans-guidelines-hate-s...

Alex Schultz, the company’s chief marketing officer and highest-ranking gay executive, suggested in an internal post that people seeing their queer friends and family members abused on Facebook and Instagram could lead to increased support for LGBTQ rights.

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

#7
post #4

Meta have some of the most double speak I’ve seen. They’ll say one set of virtuous sounding goals while completely undermining it in the same breath. This is just them running with their tails between their legs before the new admin takes over.

I think this is the norm for any topic that is politicized. You could have ChatGPT or some other LLM write the memo and it wouldn't be much better or worse.

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

#8

> 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...

For anyone unfamiliar: https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/social-media/meta-new-hate-spee...

> “We do allow allegations of mental illness or abnormality when based on gender or sexual orientation, given political and religious discourse about transgenderism and homosexuality and common non-serious usage of words like ‘weird,’” the revised company guidelines read.

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

#9

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.

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

#10

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…

> acknowledging that such DEI program was performative in the first place.

That's exactly what they're doing and I don't think that's a secret.

> This kind of announcement seems extremely self defeating and unlikely to please anyone and piss off just about anyone that cares about this in any way shape or form, on either side.

It's not about making users or bloggers happy. They don't care whether those people are "pissed" because they're just going to keep coming to stare at ads anyway. It was about keeping regulators disempowered by proactively tossing an agitated public some crumbs, but they don't need to worry about that for a while now. They're obviously just trying to keep their staffing strategies open and unshackled so that they can pursue whatever business objectives they see coming up in the next few years, and aren't at a disadvantage against competitors like Musk/X who resisted these kinds of things all along.

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