Inside Mark Zuckerberg’s Sprint to Remake Meta for the Trump Era

There's a lot to say about the obvious anti-trans bigotry that seems at the center of a whole universe notable terrible decisions that will have awful consequences for vulnerable minorities of many different types.

But I just can't right now. Reading this makes me feel ill.

Among its changes, Meta loosened rules so people could post statements saying they hated people of certain races, religions or sexual orientations, including permitting “allegations of mental illness or abnormality when based on gender or sexual orientation.” The company cited political discourse about transgender rights for the change. It also removed a rule that forbade users from saying people of certain races were responsible for spreading the coronavirus.

Some training materials that Meta created for the new policies were confusing and contradictory, two employees who reviewed the documents said. Some of the text said that saying “white people have mental illness” would be prohibited on Facebook, but saying “gay people have mental illness” was allowed, they said.

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The company also removed the transgender and nonbinary “themes” on its Messenger chat app, which allows users to customize the app’s colors and wallpaper, two employees said. 404 Media earlier reported on the change.

That same day at Meta’s offices in Silicon Valley, Texas and New York, facilities managers were instructed to remove tampons from men’s bathrooms, which the company had provided for nonbinary and transgender employees who use the men’s room and who may have required sanitary pads, two employees said.