Meta ends its DEI programs as Zuckerberg blasts Biden on Joe Rogan

CNN — Meta is ending its diversity, equity and inclusion programs, known as DEI, the company said Friday, becoming the latest company to pull back from such practices in the wake of pressure from conservative critics and customers. Meta is eliminating the company’s DEI team, ending “equity and inclusion programs and changing hiring and supplier diversity practices,” according to a company memo obtained by CNN and sent to all global employees by Meta’s vice president of human resources, Janelle Gale. “Instead of equity and inclusion programs,” Gale wrote, Meta plans to build programs “that focus on how to apply fair and consistent practices that mitigate bias for all, no matter your background.” The end to the DEI programs dovetails with other major changes at the company that critics say cater to the right since President-elect Donald Trump won November’s election. Zuckerberg said he’s been on a “journey” over the past decade, starting out “very pro-free speech, free expression,” but the 2016 victory of President Donald Trump and then pressure from the Biden administration to moderate Covid-19 misinformation on social media changed his view. “Basically these people from the Biden administration would call up our team and like scream at them and curse, and it’s like, these are documented, it’s all kind of out there,” Zuckerberg said, adding that the administration tried to get Meta to remove a meme that suggested people who get the Covid-19 vaccine would end up being part of class action lawsuits.