Big Tech's Change of Heart... "Silicon Valley Activism Slowly Dying"Despite Trump's Code, Employees Rarely Resist Job Insecurity, DEI and LGBT Programs Also Shrink Mark Zuckerberg CEO of Meta [Yonhap News Agency photo] (Seoul = Yonhap News) Reporter Cha Byeong-seop = Following the inauguration of US President Donald Trump, there is an assessment that the liberal atmosphere of Silicon Valley, where technology companies are concentrated, is also shrinking as Big Tech (giant technology companies) are moving to 'match codes'. The Financial Times (FT) reported on the 25th (local time) based on industry interviews that "big names in the technology industry are siding with President Trump and eliminating activism in Silicon Valley," and that "employees who are worried (about layoffs) are hardly protesting the management's rightward shift." Silicon Valley has traditionally been considered to have a strong liberal tendency. Start-ups such as Google and Meta have been promoting transparency and open discussion to attract talent. During the first term of President Trump's presidency, when COVID-19 was spreading, hundreds of employees at Metaplatform (Facebook's parent company) went on a 'virtual' strike because they would not take down President Trump's inflammatory posts. But now, the FT reported, there is an atmosphere in which even minor activist movements are suppressed. A representative 'right-wing' figure in Silicon Valley is CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who had an uncomfortable relationship with President Trump in the past. CEO Zuckerberg participated in LGBT events about 10 years ago, but since President Trump took office, he has been emphasizing the promotion of "masculine energy" in the workplace. Facebook has eliminated its third-party fact-checking and diversity policy oversight departments that identify fake news. Meta employees fear they could be fired if they are caught leaking internal information to the press, and CEO Mark Zuckerberg recently said he would lay off 5% of the workforce, focusing on underperforming employees. There is still a lot of discussion on the Meta internal bulletin board, but it is said that the department in charge deletes certain critical posts. It is said that insulting posts related to personnel issues on the Trump side were also deleted. Social media applications [EPA Yonhap News Agency photo] Google recently temporarily shut down an internal portal where employees could organize and promote LGBTQ events. Alphabet (Google’s parent company) and Amazon have scaled back their diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies and eliminated internal groups on LGBTQ issues. Some employees lament the slow death of activism in Silicon Valley, the FT explains. “Back in the 2010s, Silicon Valley felt different. It had a rarefied culture,” said Allison Taylor, a professor at New York University’s Stern School of Business. “Now it’s like any other top-down, union-busting big company.” The FT reported that even in this situation, employees at big tech companies such as Meta, Amazon, Apple, and Google are hardly protesting. This reflects the growing concerns about job security, with tens of thousands of people being laid off in the US tech industry in the past two years. “Nobody outside of engineers can dream of the current compensation levels,” said one former Meta employee. “They are in ‘velvet handcuffs.’” There is a welcoming atmosphere among some young male employees who are right-wing or politically indifferent, and foreign employees who are staying in the U.S. on visas provided by the company are said to be more cautious as there may be visa issues if they are fired. “There will be a moment of moral clarity, and corporations will realize they cannot go along with President Trump’s agenda,” said Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif. “If there is a constitutional crisis, the corporate leaders will be on our side.” bscha@yna.co.kr
