Meta, parent company to Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp has announced its plans to reduce global workforce by 5%. The company calls this decision an effort to eliminate “low performers”.
Mark Zuckerberg (CEO of Meta) informed his employees in a memo that the company would be undergoing an “intense” year. The company employs 72,000 people in total and will “backfill the roles” in 2025, after the reductions are implemented.
Employees in the United States will be notified by 10 February. Employees in other countries will be notified at a later time. Zuckerberg said the move was part of an effort to improve team performance. He stated, “I have decided to raise performance management standards and remove low performers more quickly.”
Changes in DEI and Fact Checking Programmes
Meta announced the decision to reduce its diversity equity and inclusion initiatives (DEI), along with changes to its fact checking programme. Meta announced the DEI rollback earlier this month. Meta cited changes in the “legal landscape” and “policy landscape” of the United States.
Meta wrote in a memo sent to its employees that “the term DEI is also charged because some people interpret it as a practice which suggests preferential treatment for certain groups.”
Meta, meanwhile, has decided to discontinue its third-party fact checking programme on Facebook and Instagram. Instead, it will adopt a similar model to X’s Community Notes – allowing users to give context to posts that may be misleading.
Zuckerberg stated that “the recent elections feel like a tipping point in culture to once again prioritize speech.” We’re going back to our roots to focus on reducing errors, simplifying policies, and restoring freedom of expression on our platform.
Platforms’ policy on hateful conduct has also changed. The company removed the line that prohibited “dehumanizing language”. The new guidelines read: “We allow claims of mental illness and abnormality based on sexual orientation or gender, given the political and religious discourse surrounding transgenderism, homosexuality, and non-serious use of words such as ‘weird.'”
The Speculation Around Political Motives
The fact-checking revisions and other organisational changes have caused a lot of discussion about the timing and possible motivations of these changes. This is especially true since Zuckerberg openly mentioned the election results in announcing that Meta’s fact checking program would be ending and its content moderation would be reduced.
Donald Trump, the President-elect who had previously criticized Facebook and its leadership for being a “true enemy of the people”, has been asked if he believes that these changes are a response to previous criticisms.
He replied, “Probably.”
