On June 1, local time, the Wall Street Journal reported that these employees publicly condemned the company’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s decision not to delete the US President Trump’s “dare to rob and shoot” statement, which they believe violates the company’s rules on inciting violence.
Last weekend, more than a dozen Facebook employees tweeted against Zuckerberg’s continuation of Trump’s claim to demonstrators “When the looting starts , the shooting starts. A Facebook employee said there are hundreds of employees in internal teams to coordinate strikes.
The strike was confirmed by a Facebook spokesperson.
According to the Wall Street Journal, although employee activism has been widespread in Silicon Valley in recent years, public protests are not common for Facebook employees because they Usually differences are kept internally, but the events of the last few days have pushed these differences into the public eye.
Facebook said that it refused to fact check or delete politician posts on the platform, but would delete posts that beautify violence and spread election misinformation.
However, according to some employees and external scholars who researched Facebook’s content rules, Trump’s posts about demonstrators and earlier contained information about the accuracy of voting by mail Of posts violated the company’s rules.
“I am an FB employee and totally disagree with Mark’s decision not to make any decisions on Trump’s recent posts, which will obviously incite violence,” Jason · Jason Stirman tweeted that he listed himself as the design manager of Facebook on the LinkedIn page, “At FB, I am not alone. There is no neutral position on racism.”
Zuckerberg said on Friday that although he believes Trump’s posts about demonstrators are “deeply offensive”, they will remain. He said that although he knew that many people disagreed, he thought “It’s best to have this discussion open, especially when the risk is high.” He said it did not violate the company’s policy to instigate violence, and people should know whether the government plans to deploy force. Zuckerberg’s post also said that Facebook Keep in touch with the White House to explain its policies.
Zuckerberg said on Sunday evening that Facebook will invest $10 million in organizations that work on racial justice.< br>
Local civil rights leaders slammed Facebook’s decision. Color Of Change executive director Rashad Robinson said, “The response of Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg to national protests not only made him wonder Be taken care of and insulted. “Rashad Robinson and Vanita Gupta, the leader of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, said they will talk to Zuckerberg and Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg on Monday night.
Trump’s tweet came in the early days of the protest, which was initiated by Black George Floyd during the detention of the Minneapolis police last week (George Floyd) caused the death. Since then, protests have spread across the United States.
Ryan Freitas, Director of Product Design, Facebook News Subscription Freitas) said in a tweet, “Mark is wrong and I will do my best to change his mind. “He added that he has mobilized more than 50 like-minded people to lobby for internal change.
Facebook spokesperson said in a statement: “We recognize many of us People are suffering now, especially our black community. We encourage employees to speak publicly when they disagree with leadership. When we face other difficult decisions around content, we will continue to seek their honest feedback. ”
By contrast, Twitter avoids the public’s attention to Trump’s tweet. Now, when browsing the Trump tweets, the public can Seeing that the tweet violated Twitter’s rules to encourage violence, however, Twitter determined that it might be in the public interest and kept the tweet. Only when the user clicks on the box with the notification can they seeThe content of the tweet.
A Facebook employee said that part of the problem was that when dealing with such posts, Facebook did not give itself the same options as Twitter.
Facebook product designer Sara Zhang tweeted, “Facebook recently decided not to take action on posts that incite violence, which ignores the safety of our community Other options.”