After Mark Zuckerberg revealed that Meta would be ending its fact-checking program, the company also announced on Friday that it is discontinuing its diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs, effective immediately, as reported by the guardian.
An internal memo from Meta acknowledged that “the legal and policy landscape surrounding diversity, equity and inclusion efforts in the United States is changing”, while pointing to recent supreme court decisions and the “charged” view some have of DEI as a concept.
Axios and Business Insider first reported the memo. While Meta confirmed to the Guardian the company is ending its DEI practices, the company did not respond to a request for a comment about how the decision aligns with its overarching goals.
In the memo, Janelle Gale, vice-president of human resources, wrote that the company would be ending several programs that targeted minority groups, including the Diverse Slate Approach, which she said “is currently being challenged” and representation goals, both of which have been used to promote diverse hiring practices.
Silicon Valley’s lack of race and gender diversity has long been acknowledged. According to the company’s most recent diversity report, under previous efforts, Meta doubled the number of Black and Hispanic employees in the US two years ahead of its goal, increasing from 3.8% and 5.2% to 4.9% and 6.7%, respectively. Per the new announcement, Meta will no longer enact specific diverse hiring practices.
The company is ending its equity and inclusion training programs and totally disbanding a team that was focused on DEI.
In addition to ending internal equity measures, the memo announced that the company would be terminating their supplier diversity efforts.
“This effort focused on sourcing from diverse-owned businesses; going forward, we will focus our efforts on supporting small and medium sized businesses that power much of our economy,” the memo reads. “Opportunities will continue to be available to all qualified suppliers, including those who were part of the supplier diversity program.”
The decision to end diversity efforts came even as Meta’s own AI-powered Instagram and Facebook profiles noted the company’s need for a more representative team.
“My creators’ team is predominately White, cisgender and male – a total of 12 people: 10 White men, 1 white woman and 1 Asian man. Zero Black creators – a pretty glaring omission given my identity!” Liv, a Black AI profile, wrote to journalist Karen Attiah. AI bots can “hallucinate”, or respond with false information, so Liv’s assessment of her development team may not be fully accurate. However, Meta’s four person AI advisory board is made up of four white men.
“A team without Black creators designing a Black character like me is trying to draw a map without walking the land – inaccurate and disrespectful.”
The move comes after Zuckerberg has joined other Silicon Valley leaders in cozying up to Donald Trump. Meta pledged a $1m donation to the president-elect’s 20 January inauguration. Earlier this week, UFC president and CEO Dana White, a Trump ally, was added to the company’s board.
Meta is one of several companies ending DEI efforts, including McDonald’s, Walmart, Ford and Lowe’s. Many of those companies have voluntarily walked back their diversity initiatives, while others were specifically targeted by far-right groups.
Bd-pratidin English/ Afia
