The X-Ification of Meta

It’s been a dire few months for internet users. With the political climate online swiftly turning sour, it can be difficult to know what to do when your favourite social media platform is becoming increasingly dangerous and discriminatory, and the billionaires who own them implement policies to encourage hatred.

X is now an overwhelmingly prejudicial site, a battleground only the brave dare to traverse. If you can stand the onslaught of slurs being tossed around at liberty, maybe it can still work as a communicative platform for you. However, if X makes you feel deeply apocalyptic, you always have Instagram to mindlessly scroll and escape the horrors of the far-right! Right?

Wrong.

A once-‘liberal’ champion of rights and implementer of diversity campaigns, Mark Zuckerberg, is X-ifying meta. With the increasing pressure of a politicised base and the small matter of President Trump threatening to jail him for life, Meta rolled back diversity efforts shortly before Trump’s inauguration, towards which Meta had pledged $1 million donation. With the DEI programs terminated, factchecking removed, and black and women’s history months being removed from google calendar, the erasure of ‘wokeness’ is in full swing. From attending Obama-era pride parades to appeasing the right and erasing swathes of workers with diversity policies, Zuckerberg’s lack of morality, avarice and performativity shocks no one. But what do we do, as normal, every-day users of Instagram and Facebook?

Unfortunately, there is no set answer. With new algorithms aiding the ‘free speech’ campaign, you can expect to see more racism, homophobia, misogyny, fatphobia, along with a plethora of other discrimination on your feed. Those who are so often in favour of free speech are attempting to quash it more than anyone, with meta blocking and down-ranking content which does not adhere to their new policies. With many LGBTQ+ creators relying on platforms such as Instagram for their- already minimal- income, this will be detrimental. Zuckerberg’s appeasement to conservatives comes at the expense, yet again, of marginalised groups whose freedom of expression really is being restricted. It is vital to engage as much as possible with these creators. There’s also much benefit in sticking to your own echo-chamber of acceptance and inclusivity online. Or, you could delete the app altogether! Whatever you choose to do, stay aware and do not allow yourself to be sucked into the horrors of the far-right. In dangerous times we need to stay in solidarity with our online communities in which so many people have found tolerance and liberty.

Words by Daisy Morrow

Cover Image Credit: Chris Stoodley via Flickr