Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, and Threads, reportedly implemented a significant overhaul of its internal and external policies this week, including the removal of tampons from men’s restrooms, according to Fox News Digital.
According to The New York Times, “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.”
The Times published this report on Friday titled “Inside Mark Zuckerberg‘s Sprint to Remake Meta for the Trump Era,” warning that “the repercussions are just beginning.”
The company enacted several changes, including removing transgender and nonbinary customisation options from its Messenger application and revising its “Hateful Conduct” guidelines to permit gender identity criticism.
The announcement followed Meta’s decision on Tuesday to end its third-party fact-checking program in the US and relax speech restrictions on its platforms. In a move to “restore free expression,” the company acknowledged that its content moderation practices had “gone too far.”
Instead of fact-checking, Meta will implement a “community notes” model, similar to Elon Musk‘s X , which relies on crowdsourced content moderation. By Friday, the organisation terminated its primary diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives.
Also read: Meta ends fact-checking, embraces Trump-era free speech agenda
Internal communications channels further revealed LGBTQ staff dissatisfaction, with some announcing departures and others indicating intentions to seek alternative employment.
Joel Kaplan, Meta’s chief global affairs officer, told Fox News Digital that ending DEI programmes would help ensure recruitment of the most qualified individuals.
“This means evaluating people as individuals, and sourcing people from a range of candidate pools, but never making hiring decisions based on protected characteristics like race or gender,” he added.
The move comes as part of broader changes at Meta, which seem aimed at aligning the company with President-elect Donald Trump and his administration.
This shift mirrors trends seen in other major companies distancing themselves from DEI and similar ideologies in the new Trump era.
Meta’s decision highlights how deeply politics influences the tech industry. While Zuckerberg frames the change as a return to free expression, critics argue it is a calculated move to curry favor with the incoming administration.
