Facebook employees from all levels of the social media giant staged a virtual walkout over founder Mark Zuckerberg’s refusal to remove a racist post by US president Donald Trump. Tanzia Haq reports.
Employees, including members of senior staff, at Facebook are rebelling against Mark Zuckerberg’s decision to not remove a potentially dangerous message by President Trump on his Facebook page.
The criticism was mainly against a message Trump initially shared as a tweet which said, “When the looting starts, the shooting starts”. This comes especially after Twitter took the step to add fact-check labels to Trump’s tweets on their platform.
Andrew Crow, Head of Design at Facebook’s Portal service, tweeted: “Giving a platform to incite violence and spread disinformation is unacceptable, regardless who you are or if it’s newsworthy. I disagree with Mark’s position and will work to make change happen.”
On a post to his Facebook page, Zuckerberg said: “Personally, I have a visceral negative reaction to this kind of divisive and inflammatory rhetoric, I disagree strongly with how the president spoke about this, but I believe people should be able to see this for themselves, because ultimately accountability for those in positions of power can only happen when their speech is scrutinized out in the open.”
A spokesperson for Facebook released a statement saying: “We recognize the pain many of our people are feeling right now, especially our black community. We encourage employees to speak openly when they disagree with leadership.”
