Meta—the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, Threads, and WhatsApp—has just hired Dustin Carmack, a former adviser to Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’s doomed presidential campaign and an ex–Project 2025 employee.
Harvard Cyberlaw Clinic instructor and attorney Alejandra Caraballo revealed the news on X (formerly Twitter) Monday afternoon, providing screenshots from Carmack’s LinkedIn profile, which he has since deactivated.
Meta has hired a former Project 2025 staffer and Ron DeSantis chief of staff as its director of public policy in the South. This coincides with a decline in moderation of anti-LGBTQ hate on Meta while limiting the reach of LGBTQ accounts. He has since deactivated his Linkedin. pic.twitter.com/4c1Br6Xc6w
— Alejandra Caraballo (@Esqueer_) August 26, 2024
Caraballo pointed out that Meta’s hire was likely made to deflect criticism from conservatives—but it’s also meant to augment the firm’s interactions with state governments, as the company has “political positions to limit regulation and buy influence.”
But the move comes amid a period in which Meta’s treatment of users—specifically the type of user who runs afoul of much of what Project 2025 wants to do to the United States—has been called into question. In recent months, the LGBTQ+ rights group GLAAD has criticized Meta’s content moderation policies on its platforms, saying that they were effectively encouraging an “epidemic of anti-transgender hate” on their social media sites. The report showed a significant increase in anti-trans and anti-LGBTQ+ posts on Meta’s sites, noting that transgender people were routinely called “sexual predators,” “perverts,” and “groomers” in many of those posts.
The Project 2025 manifesto, a conservative playbook for a future Republican presidential administration, has been criticized and derided by Democrats for many of the regressive policies it envisions, especially for those that would dramatically curtail LGBTQ+ and abortion rights. One passage states flat out that “Children suffer the toxic normalization of transgenderism with drag queens and pornography invading their school libraries.”
Carmack’s arrival at Meta also coincides with the company’s restrictions on “political content” on Instagram and Threads instituted earlier this year, which limit the reach of accounts that post about politics and social issues. The move sparked protests from journalists, activists, and even meme creators, among others, for discouraging posts about LGBTQ rights, women’s rights, and other major social issues, particularly in a presidential election year.
Donald Trump and his running mate J.D. Vance have tried in vain to distance themselves from Project 2025; it’s proven to be a daunting task due to their extensive ties to the manifesto and the people who sired it into existence. Vance even wrote the foreword to a new book written by Project 2025 architect Kevin Roberts. Meta will likely try to deflect any associations with the far-right policy wishlist soon enough, although that may be in vain considering Carmack’s role at Meta will be to reassure right-wing conservatives that their social media platforms are an asset to the cause.
