Meta moderators were already in Texas before Zuckerberg announced move, say ex-workers

Ex-workers say CEO declaring relocation of moderation and safety teams from California just a play for Trump approval

In a carefully worded statement, Mark Zuckerberg announced last week that Meta was moving its trust and safety and content moderation teams out of California and that the company’s content review “is going to be based in Texas”. The thrust of these teams’ work is to ensure that Facebook and Instagram users do not encounter hate speech, pornography and violent content.

The CEO said moving the moderators to the Lone Star state “will help remove the concern that biased employees are overly censoring content”. It was part of a larger announcement that Meta was ending its factchecking program, easing content restrictions and focusing on “free expression”. Moderators are separate from Meta’s factchecking efforts, which were done by third parties.

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