Sweeping changes are being made to Meta and social networks Facebook and Instagram, following Mark Zuckerberg‘s announcements about relaxing “fake news” policies, already stirring up reactions from members of the LGBTQ community and liberals.

The New York Times reports attempt to capture the totality of the changes, which come after Zuckerberg’s visit to Mar a Lago and his meeting with the president-elect last November.

Among everything that is being readjusted – the proceedings were conducted in secret and few people knew the tech giant’s CEO’s moods are regulations concerning public speech, fake news and the woke agenda. Partnerships with fact checking companies are abolished, more political content is allowed again, while internally the changes are many, as hiring procedures are being adjusted based on ability and not on the inclusion of minorities, while…”tampons are also being removed from men’s toilets.”

Secret process, few of the 70,000 employees knew

According to the New York Times, the changes appear to be directly tied to Donald Trump’s political victory, signaling a change in Meta’s strategy, as well as a clear personal stance on free speech by Zuckerberg.

The changes to Meta’s policy were carried out in an unusual and to some extent secretive way. Zuckerberg assembled a small group of close associates, including senior policy and communications executives, to design the new directions.

The process took just six weeks, bypassing the usual consultations with officials, stakeholders and outside advisers, which usually take months. The result was announced on 2 January, surprising the majority of Meta’s employees.

Zuckerberg had decided to make sweeping changes after visiting President-elect Donald Trump in Mar a Lago on Thanksgiving Day. By New Year’s Day, Zuckerberg was ready to make the changes public, according to four current and former Meta employees and advisers with knowledge of the events who were not authorized to speak publicly about the confidential discussions.

The changes to public discourse and fact checking

Meta decided to loosen restrictions related to political speech and social issues involving immigration, race, color, and gender.

The changes include removing the fact checking program and converting the policy against “hate speech” to “offensive behavior”. This marks a clear move away from strict content control and monitoring of Meta’s platforms for allegedly “false” or “harmful” posts.

Among the changes that have caused the most concern among Zuckerberg’s critics is the removal of restrictions on statements against certain racial or sexual groups. In addition, Meta now allows posts about certain groups that carry mental disorders, a decision the company linked to the public debate over the rights of transgender people.

Meanwhile, eliminating partnerships with companies responsible for fact checking, he said, platforms will now rely on users’ own comments to determine whether or not a piece of content is untrue.

Watch a video of Zuckerberg’s announcement:

Change in diversity and inclusion policies

On Friday, Meta’s transformation continued when the company announced to employees that it would end its diversity, equality and inclusion (DEI) policy.

It abolished the role of head of the relevant department, ended inclusion recruitment targets that required employing a certain number of women and minorities and said it would no longer give priority to minority-owned businesses when working with suppliers, but would instead base its decisions on performance and capability.

Meta planned to “focus on how to implement fair and consistent practices that mitigate bias for everyone, regardless of your background,” Janelle Gale, vice president of human resources, said in an internal post relayed to The New York Times.

No more tampons in men’s restrooms

The company also removed pronouns for transgender and nonbinary people in the Messenger chat app, which allows users to customize the app’s colors and wallpaper, two officials said. The change was reported earlier by 404 Media.

On the same day at Meta’s offices in Silicon Valley, Texas and New York, facility managers were ordered to remove tampons and sanitary napkins from the men’s restrooms, which the company had placed for non-binary and transgender employees using…the men’s restrooms.

In the days that followed, the moves drew acclaim from Trump’s entourage and conservatives, criticism from President Biden and concerns from advocacy groups in the LGBTQ community who fear the changes will lead to more people being harassed.

At the White House on Friday, President Biden told reporters that Mr. Zuckerberg’s decision to give up control of Facebook and Instagram was “shameful.”

Inside Meta, the reaction was sharply divided. Some employees celebrated the moves, while others were shocked and openly decried the changes to the company’s internal message boards. Several employees wrote that they were ashamed to work for Meta, according to the New York Times.

At Workplace, Meta’s internal communications software, employees began arguing about the changes. In the @Pride employee group, where employees who support LGBTQ issues gather, at least one person announced his resignation, while others privately conveyed to each other that they planned to seek employment elsewhere, two people said.

On Friday, Roy Austin, Meta’s vice president of civil rights, announced Friday that he was leaving the company. He did not give a reason.

In a post this week on the @Pride group, Alex Schultz, Meta’s chief marketing officer, defended Zuckerberg and said that subjects like transgender issues have been politicized. He said Meta’s policies should not inhibit the possibility of social debate and pointed to Roe v. Wade, the landmark abortion case, as an example of how “the courts got ahead of society” in the 1970s. Mr. Schultz said the courts had “politicized” the issue rather than allowing it to be discussed politically.

Zuckerberg to Joe Rogan: The Biden administration was cursing us, calling for censorship

In an interview with podcaster, Joe Rogan, on Friday, Zuckerberg said it’s time to “get back to our original mission” by giving people “the power to share.”

He said he had felt pressure from the Biden administration and the media to censor certain content, adding: “I have much more oversight now of what I think the policy should be, and that’s how it will be in the future.” In the interview, he denied making sweeping changes to appease the incoming Trump administration, but said the election influenced his thinking.

Zuckerberg even vividly described how Biden’s staff harassed his colleagues, cursing and screaming in order to remove a humorous meme from the platform.

Zuckerberg: We need more masculinity in business

The Meta chief, in the interview with Rogan, also demonstrated the company’s change of direction in another way, saying that now business needs more masculinity and “male energy.”

“I think masculine energy is good and obviously society has enough of it, but I think the corporate culture was really trying to move away from it,” he said.

“Just like you want female energy, you want male energy,” Zuckerberg said during the episode of The Joe Rogan Experience. “I think that’s all good. But I think the corporate culture had kind of swung toward being this somewhat more emasculated thing,” he added.

Watch the full interview with Joe Rogan here: