Sources detail Zuckerberg's sprint to remake Meta after meeting with Trump at Thanksgiving; he no longer wants to keep his views of how Meta should be run quiet
After visiting President-elect Donald J. Trump in November, Mr. Zuckerberg decided to relax Meta's speech policies.
New York Times
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Discussion
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@katienotopoulos
Katie Notopoulos
on bluesky
The detail about Meta removing the tampon machines from men's bathrooms in the office is so virtue signaling. Probably only ever used by a handful of employees, but work for the facilities team to have to remove. Like, it took physical labor and coordination across 3 offices to…
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@mmasnick
Mike Masnick
on bluesky
I mean, we know, because Matt Taibbi and crew spent the last four years pretending that happened, even though it didn't. [embedded post]
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@katestarbird
Kate Starbird
on bluesky
As everyone should know by now, the anti-trans rhetoric isn't about “protecting women” in bathrooms or sports ... but about removing trans people from public life. And it's working. This is a big company, making a big change that isn't about protecting anyone (except men from h…
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@isaacdovere
Isaac Dovere
on bluesky
what would the reaction have been had tech leaders been having secret meetings with a President-elect Kamala Harris and adjusting their policies in an effort to make her happier? — www.nytimes.com/2025/01/10/t...
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@noupside
Renee DiResta
on bluesky
Right but people on Substack and X say Russian interference was *all* a hoax now. It's a retcon-favorable issue now. Vibes have changed so reality can be rewritten.
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@sheeraf
Sheera Frenkel
on bluesky
As a reporter who covered the Facebook apology tour circa 2016, and spent HOURS on the phone with FB flak and executives earnestly telling me Zuckerberg was torn up over Russian election interference and was making it a top priority to fix misinfo on FB, this week's developments …
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@idott
@idott
on bluesky
The changes areonly about free speech, of course. Or maybe not: “The company also removed the transgender and nonbinary “themes” on its Messenger chat app, which allows users to customize the app's colors and wallpaper, two employees said.”
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@sunshowers.io
Rain
on bluesky
Kaplan has always been a personification of true evil [embedded post]
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@thespaceshipper.com
@thespaceshipper.com
on bluesky
“Meta loosened rules so people could post statements saying they hated people of certain races, religions or sexual orientations, including permitting “allegations of mental illness or abnormality when based on gender or sexual orientation. The level of discourse in the US is so…
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@phoebepetrovic
Phoebe Petrovic
on bluesky
yeah, this is not contradictory at all when you're clear about the underlying white supremacist and cisheteropatriarchal ideologies. it's consistent and self-explanatory. [embedded post]
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@thefred
@thefred
on bluesky
He'll be done right as Trump hits 36% approval, but Mark never was much of a forward thinker. [embedded post]
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@cavandy
@cavandy
on bluesky
for about 5 minutes he looked normal vs Space Karen as they tried to build a twtr alternative (failed, ofc) and now he takes the mask off and he was Elon's twin all along [embedded post]
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@slothropsmap
Nick
on bluesky
I actually can't believe how hard he's leaning into this. He's going to rip the company in half. bsky.app/profile/mike... [embedded post]
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@marvelle
Marshall Maher
on bluesky
billioniare dickhead white guy consults other billionaire dickhead white guy on how to moderate trans speech - SPOILER: It doesn't go well! [embedded post]
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@unavaleable
@unavaleable
on bluesky
“trump won, lets become evil now” [embedded post]
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@raisingonebrow
@raisingonebrow
on bluesky
This is all important. — I noticed in Zuckerberg's defensive post that some people would leave FB due to ‘virtue signaling’ which is techbro-speak for 'empathy that we don't and can't understand' [embedded post]
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@mx0x20wednesday
Wednesday
on bluesky
sure woulda been nice if the obama admin or the biden admin did something about these vampiric oligarchs that are now bending the fabric of our collective reality to their will [embedded post]
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@donmoyn
Don Moynihan
on bluesky
We have lived through years of censorship of higher education coming from the party complaining about progressives policing speech and none of it registers. [embedded post]
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@davidakaye
David Kaye
on bluesky
put aside whether meta has the right specific content moderation rules. maybe, maybe not. — this here below is a portrait of a company in thrall to trump, power, right-wing shibboleths, & a muskian view of (irr)responsibility. fallen precipitously far from its now evidently t…
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@jholston
JB Holston
on bluesky
Andreesen is as bad an actor as Musk and Thiel. [embedded post]
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@tomscocca
Tom Scocca
on bluesky
Zuckerberg was just tired of limits on free speech, that's all [embedded post]
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@whetmoser.com
Whet Moser
on bluesky
“Some training materials that Meta created for the new policies were confusing and contradictory, two employees who reviewed the documents said. Some... text said that saying “white people have mental illness” would be prohibited... but saying “gay people have mental illness” wa…
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@jvagle.me
Jeffrey Vagle
on bluesky
Meta establishing white guys with gold chains over oversized t-shirts bearing presumably clever designs as the only remaining protected class. [embedded post]
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@kateconger.com
Kate Conger
on bluesky
Scoops w/ @mikeisaac.bsky.social and @sheeraf.bsky.social: —Zuck overhauled Meta's hate speech policy in Nov after convos with Andreessen about progressives policing speech —Kaplan led the policy rewrite, championing the removal of language protecting trans people www.nytimes.c…
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@jasonkoebler
Jason Koebler
on threads
New: Meta has deleted trans and nonbinary Messenger themes, as well as the blog posts announcing them. Happens the same week that it has changed its rules to allow users to say LGBTQ+ people are “mentally ill” — https://www.404media.co/...
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@carnage4life
Dare Obasanjo
on threads
My DMs this entire week as a Meta employee.
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@seth.abramson
Seth Abramson
on threads
My god, he actually had to do a did-I-do-good-daddy live check-in after announcing a slew of changes at Meta intended to appease fascism
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@benedictevans
Benedict Evans
on threads
I am reminded today of the story that when Syrians wanted to use pseudonyms on Facebook so that wouldn't be arrested, tortured and shot, no one in Menlo Park moved, but when drag queens in SF couldn't use pseudonyms there was internal uproar and they changed the policy immediate…
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@crumbler
Casey Newton
on threads
Thoughts @alexorig? — RE: https://www.threads.net/...
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@kevinroose
Kevin Roose
on threads
Every Meta employee who is not a dead-eyed mercenary is going to have an awkward time explaining all of this to their kids someday!
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@palmerluckey
Palmer Luckey
on x
If the story about Meta removing tampons from the men's restrooms turns out to be true, I will share the hilarious decade-old origin story of the policy.
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@richardhanania
Richard Hanania
on x
This is like pulling down the statue of Saddam. Now you know wokeness is dead.
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@dseetharaman
Deepa Seetharaman
on x
If this detail about tampons is true, I'm curious who asked for it & for what benefit. Meta's case for clamping down on internal dissent is the debate distracts from the job. What's their case for removing tampons in the most intimate spaces we have at work?
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@asanwal
Anand Sanwal
on x
Ok. He's overdoing it now.
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@brianstelter
Brian Stelter
on x
Mark Zuckerberg was back at Mar-a-Lago today, the NYT reports https://www.nytimes.com/...
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@dhh
@dhh
on x
Zuckerberg is ripping off the bandage. Speaking from experience, it would be smart money for Meta to make the pro-censorship camp an appealing offer to leave. These kinds of cultural resets work best when they're total.
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@pt
Parker
on x
@ZacharyGraves Casey can be reasonable but he's lost the plot on this. Zuck was born a free speech believer and has been working through complicated issues he never anticipated. This is a good product move and he wouldn't do it if it weren't. The grain of truth here is that when …
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@pt
Parker
on x
The first 20 minutes of Zuck's Rogan interview is exactly this tweet. https://overcast.fm/... [image]
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@kevinmdraper
Kevin Draper
on x
“He said Meta's policies should not get in the way of allowing societal debate and pointed to Roe v. Wade, the landmark abortion case, as an example of ‘courts getting ahead of society’ in the 1970s.”
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@johnbiggs
John Biggs
on x
Zuck was just waiting for the right moment to do this. He and all the shitty Valley and crypto CEOs are hungry to be able to “Do this bad thing or you're fired” again instead of having to go through HR and DEI groups that force them to think through their bullshit.
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@mikeisaac
Rat King
on x
as of Friday morning, only one c-suite executive has addressed the internal employee revolt that has occurred in the past 72 hours that came from CMO Alex Schultz, who had this to say: comparing the “heavy handed” approach to speech to courts intervening in abortion debate [image…
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@garymarcus
Gary Marcus
on x
Sometimes the prompt works pretty well the first time. “Mark Zuckerberg saying to Elon Musk I want to be just like you when I grow up.” [image]
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@mikeisaac
Rat King
on x
the changes have come fast and furious: On Tuesday, meta excised Nonbinary and Trans themes and wallpapers from its messaging apps Meta Executives also ordered facilities managers across their global offices to remove tampons from men's bathrooms, a longtime practice [image]
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@mikeisaac
Rat King
on x
the company-wide sea change needs to be viewed in two ways: 1. This is meta meeting the political moment and fighting for its survival 2. more importantly, Zuckerberg has felt strongly about all of these changes for quite some time and talked to confidants about it [image]
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@mikeisaac
Rat King
on x
NEW: inside Mark Zuckerberg's six-week sprint to remake Meta for the Trump Era w @sheeraf @kateconger https://www.nytimes.com/... [image]
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@parkermolloy
Parker Molloy
on threads
The dominoes continue to fall
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@ericcolumbus
Eric Columbus
on x
And if I'm reading Roy's note correctly (others with more info please chime in) the Civil Rights Team at Meta is being dismantled and (some?) members of the team are being reassigned to other Meta offices. (Unless he's just noting something that happened at an earlier date?) 2/2
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@ericcolumbus
Eric Columbus
on x
BREAKING: Roy Austin, Meta's Vice President of Civil Rights and Deputy General Counsel, just announced his resignation and posted a note on LinkedIn. Roy is a former Obama DOJ colleague; although his announcement note is very civil, the timing doesn't seem coincidental. 1/2 [imag…
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@mikeisaac
Rat King
on x
Austin remains pretty buttoned up on why he's leaving but i would imagine the timing and reasoning isn't out of nowhere
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@inafried
Ina Fried
on x
Confirmed as well. Austin, a long time civil rights leader, headed a small team dedicated to civil rights including housing and employment ads. Here's our story from when the team was founded. https://www.axios.com/...
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@swumintheocean
@swumintheocean
on x
@MikeIsaac is there literally one word of explanation as to why he's leaving and i missed it? this is the statement equivalent of an empty glass
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@jason_kint
Jason Kint
on x
Straw meet camel.
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@aaron.rupar
Aaron Rupar
on threads
Biden on Meta ending fact-checking: “Telling the truth matters ... it's just completely contrary to everything America's about. We want to tell the truth. We haven't always done it as a nation, but we want to tell the truth ... I think it's really shameful.”
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@bdomenech
Ben Domenech
on x
Mark Zuckerberg is not an example of “a billionaire can buy something and say from this point on we're not gonna fact check anything” as he literally started the company. Fact check: Joe Biden's critique of Meta's policy contains an obviously false claim and misinformation.
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@ericldaugh
Eric Daugherty
on x
BREAKING: Biden rips Mark Zuckerberg's decision to get rid of biased fact checkers on Meta for a “Community Notes” model, goes on a pro-censorship tirade. “It's really shameful.” “I find it to be just contrary to American justice. Telling the truth matters! [...] “You think it [v…