By Alan Martin, freelance writer
It has been a dispiriting few days for those concerned with media diversity. As inauguration day approaches for Donald Trump, Meta — a company that once banned the President from its platforms — now seems to be tripping over itself to win favour with the new administration.
After putting an end to fact-checking last week, Axios broke the news that Meta will also be ending its DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion) programmes. The Diverse Slate Approach to hiring will also be abandoned, and the company will end efforts to use diverse-owned businesses as suppliers.
On the surface, this would appear to be just as bleak as the fact-checking change for diversity, given Meta employs around 70,000 people worldwide to look after Facebook, Instagram, Threads, WhatsApp and other mass-market products.
But while the end of fact-checking will almost certainly have consequences for media diversity, there are telltale signs that this may be less significant in the long run. It could merely be lip service to placate a hostile incoming government, or simply CEO and founder Mark Zuckerberg “speaking Trump’s love language”, as a transition source put it to Axios.
A read of the memo itself seems to back this up. “Having goals can create the impression that decisions are being made based on race or gender,” wrote Janelle Gale, vice president of human resources about the abandoned representation goals. “While this has never been our practice, we want to eliminate any impression of it.”
In other words, the abandonment of well-intentioned DEI seems to be more about optics than outcomes. And if that’s true (notwithstanding the possibility that this itself might be spin to placate potentially disgruntled employees), then Meta may should continue to diversify its workforce even without policies in place to help steer it towards that goal.
The hints are there in the published numbers. Because Meta has had well-publicised diversity goals dating back to 2014 when it was still called Facebook, the company has a history of loudly proclaiming its success in the area. And the numbers indicate it’s been moving in the right direction, exceeding its goals for Black and Hispanic employees in 2022 — two years ahead of schedule.
In 2018, the report says, 4.9% of employees were Hispanic and just 3.5% were Black. Four years later, these figures had crept upwards to 6.7% and 4.9% respectively, with White (37.6%) slipping to second place behind Asian (46.5%).
While the numbers are lower when filtered to just show leadership roles, they were still moving in the right direction over the same period, with 2.4% Black and 3.3% Hispanic in 2018 edging up to 4.9% and 5.4% in 2022. We don’t have more recent data than this, with no report for 2023 or 2024, possibly because DEI cutbacks began two years ago, according to CNBC at the time.
And sadly, we likely won’t see updated figures until the political mood music changes. Maxine Williams, formerly Meta’s chief diversity officer who penned the blog post championing the progress, has been moved to a role overseeing accessibility and engagement.
Importantly, however, these numbers were shifting at roughly the same pace whether Trump (2018-2020) or Biden (2021-2022) were in the Oval Office. It seems likely therefore that Meta will continue to become a more diverse company regardless of attention-grabbing announcements like this. In fact, the memo says as much directly: “we will continue to source candidates from different backgrounds”, it reads. It just presumably won’t (publically) showcase its diversity as a badge of honour as it had done previously.
But that in itself is troubling. DEI has long been stigmatised by its critics as being fundamentally unmeritocratic, rather than a small, necessary step towards correcting historic biases. And some high-profile voices have unsubtly made DEI a scapegoat for society’s wider ills and grievances — just this week, Elon Musk nonsensically argued that the response to California’s wildfires has been hampered by poor leadership thanks to DEI. “DEI means people DIE” he provocatively wrote.
In the face of such anti-diversity propaganda, it would be helpful if enormously successful companies like Meta continued to demonstrate how diversity has strengthened them. But while the memo acknowledges that diverse teams are “better at innovating, solving complex problems and identifying new opportunities”, it’s still ultimately happy to tacitly go along with the crude narrative that it’s been a hindrance. Another tech giant — Amazon — has done similar, though Apple, to its credit, is currently urging its shareholders to vote against following suit.
Even if it does, it seems likely that Silicon Valley giants will continue to diversify. But with active steps to shape a more representative workforce politically out of fashion, it seems unlikely we’ll hear about this progress until the political weather changes once again.
Disclaimer:
The views and opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not reflect the official policy or position of the Media Diversity Institute. Any question or comment should be addressed to [email protected]
