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Meta ends its DEI program (internal memo, Ars Technica verification). The company is disbanding its DEI team. It will no longer use "diverse slate hiring" (intentional seeking-out of candidates of particular underrepresented minorities). It is "sunsetting our supplier diversity efforts", which probably means that they will no longer privilege minority/women-owned suppliers.
It is ending the perception that it has representation goals. Yes that's convoluted, but how else does one interpret this statement:
The stated reason for the shift in policy:
That is, they expect to no longer be sued based on "disparate impacts", but possibly sued based on preferential treatments. This... makes sense for a company to do. McDonalds is doing it; Walmart did it more than a month ago.
I expect more companies to follow suit (quietly or loudly). My question is: are there any corporate for-profit true-believers who will stick with the DEI initiatives? Ben and Jerry's, maybe?
One thing that is important to keep in mind is that there was a little cottage industry in the academic literature that strained to try to prove that diversity initiatives were actually supported by a simple business case, that increasing diversity would increase performance and increase profits. There were plenty of lit spats about such claims. But some folks still believe genericized versions of it.
The kind of funny thing is that a lot of those same people are the ones who are now saying that these companies are cutting such programs now just to make more money. If one truly believes that DEI programs increase performance/profits, then they should believe that cutting DEI programs decreases performance/profits. Thus undercutting at least one of their two rationales.
One would think that some set of these large companies who adopted such programs ≅4yrs ago would have seen their performance indicators and profits taking off. They'd be saying, "We can't cut this; it would cost us too much money." Instead, I think the much more likely interpretation is the one that is supported by the current claims, not the former claims - lots of companies adopted these programs in the wake of George Floyd; some were just trying to play the PR game, others may have legitimately believed the predictions of increased performance/profits. ≅4yrs later, they've seen that the magical increased performance/profit simply hasn't materialized, the political pressure is decreased, and they now, indeed, want to save some money.
Or, no one ever believed those claims. They were merely there as part of the toolkit to silence those opposed to the program.
Did he really have to, though? What would have happened to him if he had said no to DEI? This isn't a rhetorical question on my part, by the way.
Discrimination lawsuits against Meta? They could have been fought.
Loss of woke employees? Not that significant for a company that people in general want to work for as much as they want to work for Meta.
Government interference of some kind? Not sure about this one. I can imagine the government forcing companies to add surveillance or censorship, since we have seen both happen, but I don't know if the government would bother to enforce DEI programs.
Angry investors? Also not sure about this one. How many would have cared?
I haven't watched the quite lengthy Rogan Zuck interview, so maybe someone could fill me in.
An advertising boycott. It's no joke, I can't find the link, but I remember posting here that Elon lost 80% of advertising revenue on Twitter. He possibly made up for it by corresponding 80% emoyment cuts, and the shift to paid subscriptions, but the company's finances are now private, so we don't know.
This was also a very tangible threat for Zuckerberg, not a hypothetical. I remember seeing the "No Clicks For Hate" campaign, which was specifically targeted at Facebook, pop up in various places in the tech sector.
Interesting. I feel a bit silly for having missed that obvious factor.
That does bring up the question, though... why wouldn't an advertising boycott be a similar problem for Meta nowadays? Has culture really shifted that much in the last few years?
Boycotts require lots and lots of buy in from the rank and file, as both gun control and pro-life movements have discovered, so you can’t just deploy them Willy-nilly. You can use them effectively against companies that take major stands on current thing, you can use them against companies with easily available alternatives, and in both cases you need a big true believer base.
Calling the boycott bluff is economically rational and Zuckerberg is smart enough to know it. There just isn’t a good alternative to meta- TikTok is about to be banned, Twitter has an even stronger reputation for far-right, and it’s no longer the current thing. Advertisers have learned this- especially after the bud light boycott(which is a great example of the conditions for a successful boycott- there’s a big true believer base which thinks transgenders are mentally ill perverts, they drank bud light and there were lots of easy alternatives, and trans was a big current thing). Contrast with the boycotts of Starbucks or home depot.
Advertising boycotts are a bit different, you don't need to convince consumers, you need to convince marketing departments. Who are staffed entirely with people who already want to believe Facebook is being hateful, and who are profoundly inside filter bubbles making them believe everyone agrees with them (if they weren't advertising wouldn't look like it currently does).
Zuck can call the bluff now (and couldn't before) because of the election. Marketing departments that try pushing their companies into the "woke" side of the culture war will probably be overruled by CEOs who have now recieved a very strong signal as to where the population stands with regards to this.
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