After an inside Q&A with CEO Mark Zuckerberg made headlines over the tech tycoon’s pro-President Trump commentary, Meta threatened to fireside staffers for leaking data to the media — in a memo that then additionally obtained leaked.
Meta “will take appropriate action, including termination,” for any leakers, Meta’s chief data safety officer, Man Rosen, stated in a memo obtained by the Verge.
“When information is stolen or leaked, there are repercussions beyond the immediate security impact,” Rosen stated. “Our teams become demoralized and we all waste time that is better spent working on our products and toward our goals and mission.”
“We recently terminated relationships with employees who leaked confidential company information inappropriately and exfiltrated sensitive documents,” the memo continued.
The warning got here after recordings have been shared with media sources of an inside, hourlong assembly on Thursday with greater than 70,000 staffers, throughout which Zuckerberg praised Trump, defended Meta’s DEI reversal — and complained about leaks.
“We try to be really open and then everything I say leaks,” Zuckerberg stated, in accordance with leaked recordings. “It sucks.”
Meta didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.
In the course of the Q&A, Zuckerberg applauded the Trump administration, and seemingly snuck in a dig at former President Joe Biden.
“After the last several years, we now have an opportunity to have a productive partnership with the United States government,” Zuckerberg stated. “The government can sort of be actively opposing you, trying to get in the way and add a lot of friction, or can be actively trying to help you break down barriers to help you.”
“It’s the right thing to do,” he added, on having an excellent relationship with the Trump administration.
Like many others within the tech and crypto industries, Zuckerberg has been cozying as much as the president in hopes that his administration will foster a friendlier regulatory setting.
He sat in entrance of Trump’s cupboard picks, together with Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and Tesla founder Elon Musk, throughout the president’s inauguration.
He additionally just lately axed Meta’s fact-checking insurance policies and variety initiatives in a nod to Trump and shut ally Musk.
In recent times, Zuckerberg has tried to close down dissent over these selections at Meta, banning staffers from talking about sure contentious political and social points, in accordance with the New York Occasions.
However some Meta employees have protested the modifications — just like the removing of tampons from the boys’s bogs.
Staffers have been bringing in their very own tampons, pads and liners to inventory the boys’s restroom as a silent protest, in accordance with the Occasions.
Throughout Thursday’s Q&A, Zuckerberg defended Meta’s DEI coverage reversal.
“We’re in the middle of a pretty rapidly changing policy and regulatory landscape that views any policy that might advantage any one group of people over another as something that is unlawful,” he stated. “Because of that, we and every other institution out there are going to need to adjust.”
A flood of main corporations — together with Goal and Walmart — have backtracked on their DEI initiatives, and the pullback has solely ramped up since Trump took workplace and signed an govt order that seeks to ban range packages on the federal stage.
In the course of the assembly, Janelle Gale, Meta’s head of individuals, stated there have been different forms of discrimination at Meta that wanted to be addressed, like girls being fired for sexual harassment and staffers being excluded for his or her political opinions, in accordance with the Occasions.
Zuckerberg stated the corporate was bringing again a type of unconscious bias coaching that might deal with extra than simply “a few different groups.”
In 2025, Meta will largely deal with synthetic intelligence, constructing massive information facilities and the metaverse, Zuckerberg stated.
He additionally talked about that Meta was retaining an in depth eye on the looming TikTok ban, and commented on DeepSeek, the Chinese language AI rival that shook the tech sector, arguing it has already helped Meta enhance its personal AI fashions.
The Q&A session reportedly had a much less interactive format with fewer alternatives to submit questions, which Zuckerberg blamed on the leaks.
