In an opinion piece, former Facebook diversity executive Bärí A. Williams criticizes Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s decision to disband the company’s diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs, signaling a shift in priorities as he aligns with the incoming Trump administration.
Williams, author of Seen Yet Unseen: A Black Woman Crashes the Tech Fraternity and the founder of Facebook’s Supplier Diversity Program, recently published an opinion piece via MSNBC on the shutdown of Meta’s DEI initiatives. In the piece, Williams stated her concerns about Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s decision to disband the company’s DEI programs, signaling a change in priorities as he seeks to align with the incoming Trump administration.
Williams expressed her disappointment in the abandonment of Meta’s Supplier Diversity Program, an initiative she spent countless hours developing. She writes, “From October 2014 to October 2016, I spent nights, weekends and even part of my maternity leave, creating the supplier diversity program. And now it’s defunct.” The decision to dismantle the Supplier Diversity Program comes as a surprise, especially considering Meta’s previous pledges to support diversity and inclusion. As Williams notes, “In June 2020, Facebook pledged a $1.1 billion ‘investment in Black and diverse suppliers and communities in the U.S.’”
However, Williams believes that with the departure of Sheryl Sandberg, who served as Facebook’s chief operating officer between 2008 and 2022 and was a champion of content moderation, sustainability, diversity, equity, and inclusion, “the buffer was removed.” She adds, “Zuckerberg, who’s now evangelizing on the virtues of ‘masculine energy’ in companies, has reportedly blamed Sandberg for the existence of the company’s diversity initiatives and said she was the reason why he couldn’t disband them.” Breitbart News previously reported on Zuckerberg passing the buck to Sandberg by blaming her for the company’s DEI lunacy. Williams believes “this is Zuckerberg showing us who he really is.”
Williams also highlights the implications of abandoning DEI programs at Meta, stating that “Meta abandoning all companywide DEI programs would mean abandoning efforts to recruit at schools typically outside of their funnel — the Grace Hopper Conference, the AfroTech Conference, historically Black colleges and universities and state schools — so it’s clear diversity is not an asset to them.” She adds, “Zuckerberg must have seen Elon Musk of X questioning the talent and intellect of HBCU students; by eliminating DEI programs, he’s essentially doing the same.”
Williams expresses her concern that the dismantling of fact-checking and the abandonment of diversity initiatives at Meta “not only make the platform unsafe for marginalized people but also encourage hate speech.” She emphasizes, “With the end of fact-checking and Meta abandoning diversity, marginalized people are not only unsafe on these platforms, but hate speech is damn near encouraged.”
In light of these changes, Williams encourages users to “vote with their engagement by deleting their accounts or letting them sit dormant.” She urges people to “move on from platforms that give free rein to people foaming at the mouth to insult and harm us for their pleasure and that create products that don’t consider their disparate impact on us or our communities.”
Read the full opinion piece at MSNBC here.
Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship.
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