Summary
Meta’s recent shift to right-leaning policies, including ending fact-checking in the U.S., scaling back content moderation, and allowing anti-LGBTQ rhetoric, has sparked boycotts and a user exodus.
The company also disbanded its diversity, equity, and inclusion team, drawing criticism.
Prominent users like director Cord Jefferson and nonprofits like Equal Access Public Media have left or reduced activity on Meta platforms.
Many are migrating to alternatives such as Bluesky, Amigahood, and Tumblr, while some remain trapped due to Meta’s dominance in communication and business.
Several years ago I got to have lunch with the head of HR at my then-employer. It was a mid sized publicly traded global corporation, and the HR VP was generally the old white sanitized robot you’d expect.
The one discussion I remember was him describing how diversity is legitimately an asset for businesses that produces better results. It wasn’t “we believe in equality” or “we show the public that we care” or “we have to.” It was literally that it makes the big number get a little bit bigger. And to be clear, I’m a white guy like him.
So when huge companies cast it aside I think the most gracious possible interpretation is that the soulless drones that value only money see more benefit in having the support of the right wing government and the worst parts of the population than having a better performing workforce.
There are much less kind interpretations obviously, and some of them are probably right.