Meta-discussion
by Matt May
Welcome to 2025. It’s been a while. This is a kind of state of the union, and it’s explicitly political, so if that’s not what you want over your morning coffee or whatever, I don’t blame you. See you next time.
If you’re in a bad mood, you’re not alone.
We’re a week away from the second Trump inauguration, and just typing that much makes me ill. (Anybody who’s read anything I’ve written should be completely unsurprised I’m not a fan.)
The first chapter in Timothy Snyder’s book On Tyranny is titled “Do not obey in advance.” Here’s how Snyder himself sums it up:
Most of the power of authoritarianism is freely given. In times like these, individuals think ahead about what a more repressive government will want, and then offer themselves without being asked. A citizen who adapts in this way is teaching power what it can do.
I think there’s plenty of this in evidence, from corporations and individuals donating $1 million each to the inauguration (a kind of slush fund that’ll siphon off to a number of Trump-aligned grifters) to MSNBC’s flagship morning anchors flying to Mar-a-Lago to bend the knee.
And then there’s what Meta is doing.
I’ve already written about them on LinkedIn last week. (TL;DR if you work there and think this is a cyclical thing, or that you can keep working in a visible DEI role without being complicit, it’s not, and you can’t.) But there’s more to it than that.
Meta is rotten from the top. The most important thing to know is that Mark Zuckerberg has absolute control over the company. Meta stock, to the consternation of 92% of its voting shareholders, is controlled by Mark’s 99.8% monopoly on Class B shares, which count as ten votes to one for every Class A share. Nothing happens without his individual approval. L’état, c’est lui.
It’s kind of telling that the closest Mark comes to being creative is to co-design a baggy black t-shirt that I would describe as “Ed Hardy for billionaire Ayn Rand fanatics who took a year of Latin.” The text reads Carthago delenda est: “Carthage must be destroyed.” (You can be sure that whatever he thinks Carthage is, this dude ain’t Cato the Elder.)
Some have suggested that this is, in pro wrestling terms, a “heel turn”: the moment when a character turns into a bad guy. And it’s important to remind everyone: he was never a good guy. For all its lofty talk about connecting people, as many others have stated in the past, Facebook started as a “hot or not” clone for female coeds. He has always been (gestures at everything) this.
Last week on LinkedIn, I made a blanket recommendation that anyone who works at Meta and cares about inclusion “get out.” That’s an opinion and a suggestion, but if you can’t pull it off, I can’t judge. Meta preys on actively recruits recent grads, and has historically been good resume fodder for people starting in the industry (though how well that holds up now remains to be seen). It’s also a tight job market. Meta’s not the only one making a right turn. And that puts a population of mostly young, really diverse, and not very economically stable people in the position of either living their values or paying their rent. I get that.
I have just one request, and I will judge people over it: if you stay, don’t lie. Meta’s PR operation is in crisis comms mode now, and anyone called to cape for them at this point deserves the backlash they’ll get. Meta’s former “chief diversity officer” has been shunted off to VP of “accessibility and engagement” (despite having no apparent accessibility experience on her CV), and she has been real quiet through all this. I can’t find a post from her on any social media in almost 2 months. I’m hoping the next one I do see will be to tell me what new company she’s working for, not some bullshit about how Meta really, really cares, really.
As for using Meta platforms, you’d think someone like me would say you should get out of those, too. But… I can’t do that. It’s complicated. There are numerous private and invite-only communities inside Facebook (not to mention WhatsApp group chats) that are self-policing, and will do what they can to keep their members safe, even if Meta won’t. I’m certainly not going to lecture a trans person, for example, about how Facebook is an unsafe place for them. They know. All social media sites are hostile to a number of vulnerable populations, in their way.
I think my advice all around is this: if you’re on the inside—as an employee, or a user—you should at least consider getting out. But if you’re out, do not get back in, or start anything new on a Meta platform. And if a Meta recruiter comes calling, do what I did years ago and say:
“I have no interest in working for Meta. Please remove me from your prospects list.”
Let it rot. Meta delenda est.
Anyway, I promise this year won’t just be weekly posts about how each individual billionaire sucks (although that’d probably be a great newsletter of its own, tbh). The point is, we are at a place in history where the line of least resistance will be to put on a $300 t-shirt and a $900,000 watch and say DEI doesn’t work, so we’re pivoting to hate speech.
There will be companies that will go with the flow, and companies that won’t. Costco, for example, just faced a shareholder proposal to gut its DEI work, and dismissed it. Pretty painless. It’s almost like the ones who rolled over under similar pressure didn’t really mind. Hmm.
The point is, choices matter. Companies deserve praise when they’re doing what you think is right—not before they do them, and not after they stop. As customers, we’re free to vote with our wallets. As employees, it’s a lot more hazy, but we should never let a company use your reputation to gain goodwill that they have not earned.
We’re in for a long slog, and we are going to have to pay close attention to who is obeying in advance, especially in the social media space. When they do, and we comply in turn, there will be no place, at least online, to resist.
Office hours
Well, that was fun. Let’s do this again, shall we?
I’m reopening office hours this week. I’m doing them (almost) every Thursday. Book a time to talk with me for 30 or so about working in inclusion-related fields in tech. It’s going to be rough. Let’s stick together.
Office hours with Matt (free)
Next Monday is Take Your Gummies at Work Day. Pass it around.
That’s all. Hang in there.