What Mark Zuckerberg’s talk about “masculine energy” could mean for the future of meta

As the US inauguration approaches, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg is preparing his company for a second Trump era.

Four years ago, in the wake of the January 6 riots, Meta booted Donald Trump from its platform. And now the donation is made $1 million for Trump’s inaugurationZuckerberg says the tech sector needs more “masculine energy” as well as reviving a corporate culture that “celebrates aggression.”

He made comments on The Joe Rogan Experience Podcast amid massive structural and cultural changes at the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, including the removal of third-party fact-checking and… Change guidelines to allow slurs against some vulnerable groups.

Media experts point out that his moves give insight into how the winds of political change could lead to more discord on social media — and limit diversity in an already largely homogeneous tech sector.

Celebrating aggression

One of the main talking points in Zuckerberg’s conversation was the idea that corporate workplaces have distanced themselves from a certain kind of masculinity.

“Masculine energy is good, and society obviously has a lot of it, but I think corporate culture has been really trying to get away from it,” Zuckerberg said during his press conference. Almost three hours long conversation with Rogan.

“I think having a culture that celebrates aggression a little more has its own really positive benefits,” he added.

This language matters, according to Robert Lawson, an associate professor of sociolinguistics at Birmingham City University in the UK who studies the intersection between language and masculinity in both online and offline settings.

He said it was surprising that Zuckerberg would call for more masculinity, given that technology in particular is already a male-dominated field.

As of June 2022, only 37.1 percent of all global Meta Platforms employees were women. According to the report, women make up only 25.8% of technical roles and 36.7% of leadership roles Data from Statista.

Lawson described this kind of rhetoric as “oppressed entitlement” from men who have long been the center of society, and with the advent of diversity and inclusion efforts, may no longer feel this way.

“And they are angry,” he added.

Lawson said the sentiment has become more widespread in the United States because of the “type of masculine identity” that Trump represents.

But what does this kind of rhetoric mean for Meta’s future — both in its workplace and in its main products like Facebook and Instagram?

The changes could lead to a “slow erosion” of minorities

Since the US election, Zuckerberg has sought to better align with the incoming Trump administration through various structural and cultural changes.

This shift comes as Meta prepares for it He will face trial in April Due to allegations by the US Federal Trade Commission that the social media platform bought Instagram and WhatsApp to crush emerging competition.

The Joe Rogan interview was released just days after Meta announced major changes to its content moderation policies that have since drawn praise from Trump, who said the company has “come a long way.”

the New guidelineswhich will continue to ban insults related to someone’s mind or mental illness, now makes an exception and allows users to post posts accusing 2SLGBTQ+ people of being mentally ill because they are gay or transgender.

The company defends it as prioritizing free speech, but even free speech advocates have questioned creating explicit exceptions targeting vulnerable groups.

Meta did not respond to CBC News’ request for comment regarding the changes.

End diversification and cost-cutting efforts

The company also said it would halt several of its diversity and inclusion efforts, which sparked backlash among some. Internally, nearly 400 employees reacted to the announcement with crying emojis; Some described it as “disappointing,” some said Report from Business Insider.

New York Times It reported that employees were directed to remove tampons from the men’s restrooms, which were provided to the company’s non-binary and transgender employees.

Lawson believes these changes will lead to a “slow erosion” of women and various minorities who work in and interact with meta platforms.

He said that this is all due to “youth’s anxiety about decentralization,” which is an attempt to regain control of spaces.

“I think it will drive out exactly those communities that will be in the crosshairs of the alt-right, and the most toxic and problematic people.”

The company is also ending third-party fact-checking in the US, a move that will exacerbate this issue. Dozens of fact-checking organizations I criticized.

“If you allow the most harmful users to flourish on your platform, the harmless ones will leave,” said Elizabeth Lobato, a senior writer at The Verge who reports on finance and technology.

She believes these changes at Meta are “ideologically motivated” and attempts to “cut costs,” as Meta is said to be planning to cut five percent of its global workforce this year.

“You might want to get rid of a certain portion of your staff and you can get them to quit by saying, ‘It’s going to be miserable for you now,’” Lobato said.

What happens now?

The company is also undergoing personnel changes.

In addition to the massive donation to the president-elect’s inauguration, Zuckerberg appointed Dana White, the UFC CEO and longtime Trump ally, to Meta’s board and replaced the company’s policy chief, Nick Clegg, with Joel Kaplan, a powerful former Republican lobbyist. . Relations with the party.

“It’s pretty clear, given all the trips Mark Zuckerberg has made to Mar-a-Lago, that he has a wish list…so I think there’s a certain amount of horse trading going on here,” Lobato said.

The idea of ​​traditional masculinity in technology fields is not new, Lobato said.

Zuckerberg began his career by creating FaceMash (which eventually led to the creation of Facebook), a website that was used to rate the attractiveness of women at Harvard University.

In a 2014 articleKatherine Luce, a former Facebook employee and ghostwriter for Mark Zuckerberg, wrote about how the gender dynamics of FaceMash continued with the creation of Facebook, Refer to the Harvard study Which found that women make up the majority of profiles viewed on the site, and men make up the majority of profile viewers and site creators.

“Facebook has not been a very welcoming place for women,” Lobato said. “Looking at the diversity statistics, it’s safe to say it still isn’t.”

As for the future, Lobato points to what happened at cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase in 2020 as a possible outcome. That year, dozens of employees left after their CEO The company pledged not to participate in social activity.