Meta is cracking down on internal opposition against the appointment of UFC’s Dana White to the board of directors

Meta is allegedly working to dampen internal criticism of CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s Monday announcement of the addition of Dana White to its board. 404 media I mentioned Regarding deleting comments left by employees on Workplace, an internal version of Facebook that employees can access. Some comments highlighted video footage from 2022 showing White, an outspoken Trump supporter and CEO of the Ultimate Fighting Championship, slapping his wife at a New Year’s Eve party. He was never charged over the altercation.

according to 404Some employees expressed their happiness with the appointment or made joking comments. For example, one employee wrote “W” while another wrote: “Shall we hire Conor (McGregor) for a match next after work?” A civil court has found UFC fighter Conor McGregor guilty of sexual assault after a woman accused him of rape in 2018.

Others were upset by Meta’s decision and the celebratory comments from colleagues. “It’s kind of frustrating to see people in the comments celebrating a man who was caught on video assaulting his wife and another who was recently convicted of rape,” one employee commented. “I can excuse individuals for not knowing, but Meta certainly did his due diligence on Wyatt and concluded that what he did was fine. I feel like I’m on another planet.”

Tech giants like Meta and Google were known in their early days for allowing free and dissident internal discussions, believing that this would make them fun places to work and lead to better product decisions. But as these companies have become global companies with hundreds of thousands of employees, they have greatly curtailed open discussions or employee protests. High-profile controversies e.g Anti-diversity memo This article, written by a former Google employee, caused so much internal chaos that leadership teams across the industry eventually raised their hands. The workplace is for work, or so the thinking goes, not for airing political grievances.

While removing comments about White, a member of Meta’s “internal community relations” team explained to employees that they had violated the company’s internal rules for discussing, called “Community Engagement Expectations.” “I’m posting a comment here with a reminder about CEE, as many comments have been flagged by the community for review. It’s important that we maintain a respectful work environment where people can do their best. We need to keep in mind that CEE applies “Insulting, criticizing, or antagonizing our colleagues or board members is not in keeping with CEE.”

Meta’s communications team confirmed 404 The company has different rules for internal discussions and those that occur on its platforms including Facebook and Instagram.

Zuckerberg has been in full press to please President-elect Trump, starting with A.J Donate $1 million Presented to the opening ceremony.

Following White’s appointment on Monday, Zuckerberg today made a series of content moderation announcements in a video that can best be described as a lesson in political theater. Announcements included that Meta would abandon its fact-checking device in favor of an X-style community feedback system; Leave a small team of moderation in place which will be moved from California to Texas to “eliminate bias”; Allow political content on Facebook and Instagram again after it was suppressed in recent years; And lift restrictions on content related to discussing gender and migration.

Regarding this last point, Meta has updated its community guidelines to allow this “Allegations of mental illness or homosexuality when based on gender or sexual orientation, in light of political and religious discourse around transgenderism and homosexuality.” In essence, it is now acceptable to suggest that being gay is attributable to mental illness.

Taken together, these moves appear to be nothing more than calculated moves to appease Trump, who threatened to do so under his first administration. Zuckerberg was locked up for the rest of his life. Zuckerberg last week He replaced the head of the political apparatus of Meta With a Republican insider, it shows he’ll change his views on a dime when it’s politically expedient.

Trump was asked about Zuckerberg’s decision to ease content restrictions during a news conference at Mar-a-Lago early Tuesday. After a reporter asked if Trump believed Zuckerberg was making the changes in response to his previous threats, Trump He responded“Possibly.”

Did we mention A Big antitrust case Against Meta heading to court in April? Trump could spare Meta executives, including Zuckerberg, from a lot of public questioning under oath.