Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, has announced plans to reduce its global workforce by 5 percent. This decision aims to eliminate what the company describes as “low performers”.
Mark Zuckerberg, Meta’s CEO, informed employees of the decision in a memo, emphasising the need to prepare for an “intense year.” The company, which employs approximately 72,000 people worldwide, will “backfill” the roles in 2025 after implementing the reductions.
In the United States, affected employees will be informed by 10 February. Notifications for employees in other countries will follow at a later date. Zuckerberg explained the move as part of a broader effort to enhance team performance, stating, “I’ve decided to raise the bar on performance management and move out low performers faster.”
Changes to DEI and Fact-Checking Programmes
The announcement follows recent decisions by Meta to scale back its diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives, alongside changes to its fact-checking programme. The DEI rollback was communicated earlier this month, with Meta citing shifts in the “legal and policy landscape” in the United States.
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In a memo to employees, Meta stated, “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.”
Similarly, Meta has decided to phase out its third-party fact-checking programme on Facebook and Instagram in favour of a model similar to X’s Community Notes – allowing the user community to provide context to potentially misleading posts.
“The recent elections also feel like a cultural tipping point toward once again prioritizing speech,” Zuckerberg said. “So we’re going to get back to our roots and focus on reducing mistakes, simplifying our policies and restoring free expression on our platforms.”
The platforms’ hateful conduct policy has also been changed, with the company removed a line in its policy that prohibited “dehumanizing speech”. The guidelines now read, “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’.”
Speculation Surrounding Political Motivations
These organisational changes, including the fact-checking revisions, have sparked discussions about their timing and potential motivations – particularly as Zuckerberg openly referred to the election results when announcing the end of Meta’s fact-checking programmed and the scaling down of its content moderation.
President-elect Donald Trump, who has previously criticised Facebook and its leadership as a “true enemy of the people”, was asked whether he thought these changes were a response to his previous criticisms.
“Probably,” he said.
