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Meta (META-1.98%), the parent company of Facebook, has fired about 20 employees for leaking confidential information — and more terminations are expected.
“We tell employees when they join the company, and we offer periodic reminders, that it is against our policies to leak internal information, no matter the intent,” a Meta spokesperson told Quartz in an emailed statement. “We recently conducted an investigation that resulted in roughly 20 employees being terminated for sharing confidential information outside the company, and we expect there will be more. We take this seriously, and will continue to take action when we identify leaks.”
The company did not disclose details about what information was leaked, to whom, or how many more employees could be dismissed.
The news was first reported by The Verge.
Last month, Meta warned employees in an internal memo that leaking company information would get them fired, following a rise in media reports on internal meetings and future product plans.
The company has even changed the format of its meetings as part of its crackdown on leaks, the New York Times reported. Previously, employees could vote on questions to ask CEO Mark Zuckerberg, with the most popular ones being asked. That process has been eliminated. Additionally, a side chat feature where employees could comment on live presentations was also removed.
Zuckerberg acknowledged the changes during a meeting in January, citing a rise in leaks. “Everything I say leaks. And it sucks, right?” he said during the meeting.
“I think there are a bunch of things that are value-destroying that I’m not going to talk about,” he added. “Maybe it’s the nature of running a company of this scale. But it’s a little bit of a bummer.”
Meta’s chief technology officer Andrew Bosworth also addressed the issue during a meeting in February.
“There’s a funny thing that’s happening with these leaks,” Bosworth said, according to The Verge. “When things leak, I think a lot of times people think, ‘Ah, okay, this is leaked, therefore it’ll put pressure on us to change things.’ The opposite is more likely.”
The firings come as Meta is undergoing sweeping changes, including loosening restrictions on online speech, scaling back diversity initiatives, rolling back its fact-checking program, and aligning more closely with former President Donald Trump’s administration.