Editor's note: The following column was first published in city ​​daily.

Last week, Meta (formerly Facebook) CEO Mark Zuckerberg made a shocking announcement. He is dismantling the company's DEI program and terminating relationships with fact-checking organizations, which he admits have become a form of "censorship." Left-wing media immediately attacked the decision, accusing him of embracing the MAGA agenda and predicting a dangerous growth in so-called disinformation.

Zuckerberg's move was carefully calculated and impeccably timed. The November election feels like a "cultural tipping point where speech is again prioritized," he said. DEI initiatives, especially those related to immigration and gender, have become “out of touch with mainstream conversations” — and are untenable.

This is quite a change. Just four years ago, Zuckerberg spent hundreds of millions of dollars funding left-wing electoral projects; his role was widely frowned upon by conservatives. Mehta has always been at the forefront of any identity-based or left-wing ideological cause.

Meta policy chief says decision to end DEI ensures companies hire 'the most talented people'

no longer. As part of the announcement, Zuckerberg released a video and appeared on the Joe Rogan Podcast, which now serves as a confessional for American elites who no longer believe in left-wing orthodoxy. On the podcast, Zuckerberg sounds less like a California progressive than a right-winger who believes culture needs a better balance between "masculine" and "feminine" energies.

Meta executives quickly implemented new policies, issuing pink slips to DEI employees and moving the company's content moderation team from California to Texas to, in Zuckerberg's words, "help ease the Concerns about biased employees over-censoring content.”

Zuckerberg isn't the first tech executive to make such a statement, but he may be the most important. Facebook is one of the biggest companies in Silicon Valley, and with Zuckerberg setting the precedent, many smaller companies are likely to follow.

The most important signal from this decision, however, is not a specific shift in policy but a general shift in culture. Zuckerberg has never really been an ideologue. He seemed more interested in building his company and staying in the good graces of elite society. But like many successful, self-respecting men, he was an independent thinker and clearly chafed at the cultural constraints DEI placed on his company. So he seized the moment, correctly realizing that Donald Trump was about to take office, a change that reduced risk and increased reward.

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Zuckerberg is certainly not a brave truth-teller. He has agreed with DEI over the past decade because that's where elite status signals point. Now, those signals have reversed, and like a sudden dip in the barometer, he's changing course and trying to blame the outgoing Biden administration, which he told Rogen forced him to impose censorship — a convenience An excuse for a more convenient moment.

But the good news is that regardless of the post-hoc rationalizations executives may use, DEI and its cultural assumptions are suddenly running into serious headwinds. We may be entering a critical period in which people feel confident enough to express their true beliefs in DEI, which is antithetical to excellence, and stop pretending they believe in “systemic racism” and race-based evil sense of cult ideology.

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Of course, DEI remains deeply embedded in public institutions, but private institutions and businesses have greater flexibility to dispatch such projects with the stroke of a pen.

Zuckerberg reveals what's going on at one of the biggest companies. Conservatives can praise his decision but remain wary. As Ronald Reagan once said, "Trust but verify" is a good policy.

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