Here's another good reason to get off Facebook
Brett Wilkins for Common Dreams
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| This is satire, but oh, if it were true... |
"I think a lot of the corporate world is, like, pretty
culturally neutered," Zuckerberg said during an interview with the
eponymous host of "The Joe Rogan Experience" podcast on Friday. Meta
is the parent company of social platforms including Facebook, Instagram, and
Threads.
Explaining that he has "three sisters, no
brothers" and "three daughters, no sons," Zuckerberg continued:
"So I'm, like, surrounded by girls and women, like, my whole life. And
it's like...I don't know, there's something, the kind of masculine energy, I
think, is good."
"And obviously, you know, society has plenty of that,
but I think corporate culture was really like trying to get away from it,"
he said. "And I do think that... all these forms of energy are good. And I
think having a culture that, like, celebrates the aggression a bit more has its
own merits that are really positive."
Zuckerberg elaborated:
I do think that if you're a woman going into a company, it probably feels like it's too masculine. Right? And it's like there isn't enough of the kind of the energy that you may naturally have. And it probably feels like there are all these things that are set up that are biased against you. And that's not good either, 'cause you want women to be able to succeed.
But I think these things can... go a little far. And I think it's one thing to say we want to be kind of, like, welcoming and make a good environment for everyone. And I think it's another to basically say that masculinity is bad. And I, I just think we kind of swung culturally to that part of the... spectrum where, you know, it's all like, okay, masculinity is toxic. We have to, like, get rid of it completely.
No... Both of these things are good, right? It's like, you want, like, feminine energy, you want masculine energy... I think that that's all good. But I do think the corporate culture sort of had swung towards being this somewhat more neutered thing. And I didn't really feel that until I got involved in martial arts, which I think is still a more, much more masculine culture.
While some social media observers attributed Zuckerberg's
shift to factors like "the power of gym bro masculinity,"
others noted the rightward shift in corporate America accompanying Trump's
White House return and Republicans' control of both houses of Congress.
Nowhere is this more pronounced than in the wave of
companies ending or dialing back diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI)
programs. The growing list includes McDonald's, Walmart, Boeing, Molson Coors,
Ford, Harley-Davidson, John Deere, Amazon, and—as of Friday—Meta.
According to an
internal memo from Meta vice president of human resources Janelle Gale viewed
by several media outlets, Meta is immediately ending DEI programs in hiring,
training, and supplier selection because the "legal and policy landscape
surrounding diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts in the United States is
changing."
"The term 'DEI' has also become charged, in part
because it is understood by some as a practice that suggests preferential
treatment of some groups over others," Gale explained.
Meta's move follows Tuesday's announcement that
the company is ending its third-party fact-checking
program because it is "too politically biased" and replacing it with
community notes à la X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter and
owned by Elon Musk, who will co-chair the Trump
administration's Department of Government Efficiency.
The announcement also said Meta "will be moving the
trust and safety teams that write our content policies and review content out
of California to Texas and other U.S. locations."
As part of its broad new "free expression" policy,
Meta will also permit certain speech widely considered hateful by human rights
defenders.
According to training materials viewed byThe
Intercept and other media outlets,
Meta users will be able to say things like "immigrants are grubby, filthy
pieces of shit," "Black people are more violent than whites,"
"Italians are dickheads," women are "household objects" or
"property," and transgender people are mentally ill. Calling trans
people "trannies" or "it" is now also acceptable on Meta
sites.
The New York Timesreported Friday
that Meta has ordered its offices in Silicon Valley, New York, and Texas to
remove the tampons which had been offered to transgender and nonbinary
employees who use men's restrooms. The report also said that Meta has removed
trans and nonbinary themes from its Messenger chat app.
Zuckerberg has also appointed UFC CEO Dana White, a friend
and supporter of Trump, to Meta's board of directors, explaining,
"I've admired him as an entrepreneur and his ability to build such a
beloved brand."
These moves followed a November meeting between
Trump and Zuckerberg at the former's Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, after which
Meta reportedly also gave $1 million to
the president-elect's inauguration fund.
Zuckerberg's alignment with key elements of Trumpism
represents a stark departure from just a few months ago, when, in a new book,
Trump accused him of
inimical "plotting" during the 2020 election and said he threatened
to imprison the tech billionaire for life if he did so again in 2024.
Now, Zuckerberg's blasting outgoing Democratic President Joe
Biden. He told Rogan Friday that during the coronavirus pandemic, Biden
administration officials would "call up and, like, scream... and
curse" at Meta leaders over Covid-19 misinformation.
Some internet users poked fun at Meta's new policies, with
one popular meme satirically claiming that Zuckerberg "died of coronavirus
and complications from syphilis."
But others took a more serious view of Zuckerberg's
about-face, with the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) asserting this
week that "these changes reveal that Meta seems less interested in freedom
of expression as a principle and more focused on appeasing the incoming U.S.
administration."
"Meta has long been criticized by the global digital
rights community, as well as by artists, sex worker advocacy groups, LGBTQ+
advocates, Palestine advocates, and political
groups, among others," EFF added. "A corporation with a history of
biased and harmful moderation like Meta [needs] a careful, well-thought-out,
and sincere fix that will not undermine broader freedom of expression
goals."
