Free Republic

HONOLULU (KHON2) — Recently, there was an expose on Mark Zuckerberg’s Kauaʻi compound where he and his partner have been making waves in the local community. As sea levels rise, you’re probably asking yourself why he’s investing so much money into a compound that will be impacted by beach erosion, rising ocean levels and a disappearing island. One article that gives a bit of insight into why Zuckerberg is sinking so much money into the property comes from a tech futurist writer with The Guardian. This writer was asked by the world’s biggest tech leaders to a meeting to explain...

Apple (AAPL) announced Monday that it will spend and invest more than $500 billion in the US over the next four years, including plans to build a new manufacturing factory, double its advanced manufacturing fund, and hire 20,000 people. "We are bullish on the future of American innovation, and we're proud to build on our long-standing U.S. investments with this $500 billion commitment to our country’s future,” Apple CEO Tim Cook said in a statement. "From doubling our Advanced Manufacturing Fund, to building advanced technology in Texas, we’re thrilled to expand our support for American manufacturing. And we’ll keep working...

After an internal Q&A with CEO Mark Zuckerberg made headlines over the tech tycoon’s pro-President Trump commentary, Meta threatened to fire staffers for leaking information to the media — in a memo that then also got leaked. Meta “will take appropriate action, including termination,” for any leakers, Meta’s chief information security officer, Guy Rosen, said in a memo obtained by the Verge. “When information is stolen or leaked, there are repercussions beyond the immediate security impact,” Rosen said. “Our teams become demoralized and we all waste time that is better spent working on our products and toward our goals and...

President Donald Trump has signed an agreement in which Meta would pay $25 million to settle a lawsuit he brought against the company after being suspended from Facebook in 2021 following the January 6 riot. Trump signed the settlement papers Wednesday in the Oval Office, his attorney John Coale confirmed to Business Insider. He said much of the $25 million settlement paid by Meta would go toward Trump's presidential library.

DeepSeek AI has disrupted the AI landscape in the US. In just a few weeks after the launch of its AI model, DeepSeek overtook ChatGPT to become the number one free app on the App Store. Not only this, DeepSeek's rise in popularity sent shockwaves to the tech industry, leading to a $400 billion in market cap loss for NVIDIA in the US. Recently, DeepSeek launched its Janus-Pro 7B, a groundbreaking image generation model that started making headlines, as it outperformed the likes of OpenAI's DALL-E, Stability AI's Stable Diffusion, and other image generation models in several benchmarks. The popularity...

...former Facebook diversity executive Bärí A. Williams criticizes Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s decision to disband the company’s DEI programs, signaling a shift in priorities as he aligns with the incoming Trump administration. Williams, author of Seen Yet Unseen: A Black Woman Crashes the Tech Fraternity and the founder of Facebook's Supplier Diversity Program, published an opinion piece on MSNBC on the shutdown of Meta’s DEI initiatives. Williams expressed her disappointment in the abandonment of Meta’s Supplier Diversity Program, an initiative she spent countless hours developing. She writes, “From October 2014 to October 2016, I spent nights, weekends and even part...

Mark Zuckerberg’s announcement could encourage others to stop pretending they believe in the cultish ideology of “systemic racism” and race-based guilt. Last week, Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Meta, formerly Facebook, made a stunning announcement. He was abolishing the company’s DEI programs and discontinuing its relationship with fact-checking organizations, which he admitted had become a form of “censorship.” The left-wing media immediately attacked the decision, accused him of embracing the MAGA agenda, and predicted a dangerous rise in so-called disinformation. Zuckerberg’s move was carefully calculated and impeccably timed. The November elections, he said, felt like “a cultural tipping point towards...

* Meta is set to cut about 5% of its workforce, focusing on the company’s lowest-performing workers, CNBC confirmed Tuesday. * CEO Mark Zuckerberg informed employees about the decision to “move out low performers faster” in a memo posted on the company’s internal Workplace forum on Tuesday. * Zuckerberg told employees 2025 will “be an intense year.” Meta is set to cut about 5% of its workforce, focusing on the company’s lowest-performing staffers, CNBC confirmed Tuesday. CEO Mark Zuckerberg informed employees about the decision to “move out low performers faster” in a memo posted on the company’s internal Workplace forum...

The tech industry is on the verge of a major transformation, with artificial intelligence (AI) stepping into roles traditionally held by human software engineers. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg recently revealed that AI could soon take over coding tasks previously handled by mid-level engineers, signaling a dramatic change for the profession. During a conversation on The Joe Rogan Experience, Zuckerberg shared that Meta, along with other tech giants, is working on AI systems that will handle coding duties. He predicted that by 2025, AI would be capable of performing tasks typically done by mid-level engineers. This shift marks a major turning...

Just hours after Meta chief Mark Zuckerberg announced last Tuesday that the social media giant would eliminate its US-based fact-checkers, the iconic hills above Los Angeles began to smolder. As fire crews scrambled in vain to contain the resulting firestorm, the fact-checking partners, still working for Meta, took on their own fight: trying to slow viral misinformation rapidly spreading around the wildfires. Rumor and speculation about the disaster began to swirl online like glowing embers, before eventually becoming a wild blaze of vast conspiracy theories. “Cutting fact checkers from social platforms is like disbanding your fire department,” said Alan Duke,...

Some employees of Meta, the parent company of Facebook, are so discouraged by the removal of tampons from the men’s bathroom they are engaging in their own form of protest by bringing their own.

Mark Zuckerberg announced on Friday that his Meta company, which operates Facebook and Instagram, had abandoned its DEI practices. As part of that move, the company told facilities managers to remove the tampons from the men's bathrooms. "That same day at Meta’s offices in Silicon Valley," The New York Times reported, "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." Some people could hardly beleive that this had been the...

Meta and Amazon are axing their diversity programmes, joining firms across corporate America that are rolling back hiring and training initiatives criticised by conservatives, citing legal and political risks. The move comes just days after Meta Platforms, the owner of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, said it was ending a fact-checking programme criticised by President-elect Donald Trump and Republicans. In a memo to staff about its decision, which affects, hiring, supplier and training efforts, Meta cited a "shifting legal and policy landscape". Walmart and McDonalds are among the other companies to have made similar decisions regarding diversity efforts since Trump won...

Axios reports that Meta is eliminating its biggest DEI efforts, effective immediately, including ones that focused on hiring a diverse workforce, training, and sourcing supplies from diverse-owned companies. Its DEI department will also be eliminated. In a memo leaked to the outlet, Meta said it was making these changes because the “legal and policy landscape surrounding diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts in the United States is changing.” Meta is not alone: Microsoft and Zoom have rolled back their DEI efforts. Lawsuits have emerged against programs that were targeted toward specifically the Black and Latino communities. Meta also announced this week...

The headline from Politico’s “Playbook” would have been unthinkable eight years ago: “Meta sends Trump a friend request.” After all, Meta’s founder, Mark Zuckerberg, is a political lightning rod in conservative political circles, especially after the $300 million worth of “Zuckerbucks” spent during the 2020 election to elect like-minded politicians. Yet lately, Zuckerberg has been singing a much different tune. He referred to President-elect Trump as “badass,” visited him at Mar-a-Lago, and donated one million dollars to his inaugural fund. This week, Meta made news by adding Dana White, a longtime Trump ally and head of the Ultimate Fighting Championship...

Mark Zuckerberg has laid off 3,600 staff at Meta in a shock culling spree designed to target 'low performing' staff. But impacted employees are coming forward to challenge the perception that Zuckerberg simply wanted to cut the dead weight, insisting that excuse was a 'corporate facade.' 'This wasn't about performance; it was about workforce reduction in favor of AI initiatives,' former Meta content manager Kaila Curry said. 'Maybe I ''lacked masculine energy'' (to quote Mark Zuckerberg himself). Who knows?' Curry said she received an 'exceeds expectations' result in her most recent mid-year review. 'I was always told I was doing...

Several Meta employees who said they received positive performance ratings in their mid-year reviews last year had their jobs cut Monday, as the company let go of nearly 4,000 workers in its latest round of job reductions. Business Insider spoke to eight terminated employees, who said they received “At or Above Expectations” ratings — the middle tier in Meta’s three-level mid-year review system — in their 2024 assessments. These employees said they were surprised to learn their ratings had been downgraded to “Meets Most,” one of the lower tiers in Meta’s year-end performance system that refers to meeting most, but...

President Trump has signed settlement papers that will require Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta to pay roughly $25 million to resolve a 2021 lawsuit Trump filed after the company suspended his accounts on Facebook and Instagram.

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg reportedly trash-talked his former top lieutenant Sheryl Sandberg during his visit to Mar-a-Lago, blaming her for implementing controversial DEI initiatives at Facebook that “encouraged employees’ self-expression in the workplace.” Zuckerberg, who has drawn criticism for cozying up to the new administration, made the comment during a sit-down with President-elect Donald Trump’s advisers at his Florida retreat shortly after the Republican’s historic election victory in November, according to the New York Times. The discussions on Nov. 27 — which included Stephen Miller, who will take over as White House deputy chief of staff — covered a range...

US President-elect Donald Trump has invited world leaders to his inauguration breaking with traditional US foreign policy where it is not customary for world leaders to attend the US President’s formal ascension ceremony to the Oval Office. Trump invited Chinese President Xi Jinping who is not attending but is likely to send a highly placed envoy which could either be Han Zheng, vice president and foreign minister Wang Yi. It is yet to be confirmed who shall attend. External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar will be representing the Indian government. The Trump-Vance inaugural committee, which is organizing the swearing-in ceremony for...