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After Trump posted on Friday on both Facebook and Twitter that “when the looting starts, the shooting starts” in response to protests in Minneapolis, civil rights leaders from groups such as — as well some of — called for the social media companies to take the posts down or otherwise flag them for violent rhetoric.
Twitter left up the controversial post but put a warning label on it, building on a decision it made earlier in the week when it fact-checked the president’s tweets that shared misleading information about voting by mail. But Zuckerberg decided to leave all of the posts up as-is, with the president’s comments about protesters, the post didn’t violate company policies about inciting violence. He had appeared on Fox News earlier in the week as well, where he criticized Twitter for fact-checking Trump’s posts on mail-in ballots. He said he didn’t want his company to be an “arbiter of truth” on political issues.
Now, Zuckerberg is facing an unprecedented public backlash from Facebook employees. On Twitter, several have Zuckerberg’s decision to leave Trump’s comments up. Dozens of employees are participating in a protest by taking Monday off and changing their internal avatars to an icon of a raised fist, as the New York Times first reported.Recode has learned that employees are continuing to openly challenge company leadership on internal forums and in a regularly scheduled virtual Q&A meeting with Facebook Chief Technology Officer Mike Schroepfer on Monday. For Facebook, a company with a famously unified culture, which at times some former employees , this represents a significant internal shift at the company. It reflects both the urgency of current events as well as the frustration of employees who have been quietly agitating in private for Facebook to take action on Trump’s posts but feel the company ignored their voices.
As tensions peaked on Sunday evening, Zuckerberg announced the company will donate $10 million toward groups working on racial justice. But that seemed to incense some employees even more. “Instead of throwing money at this, can we take a real stand and change our policies and products to get at the root of the problem?” one employee wrote, according to internal comments on Zuckerberg’s post announcing the donation on Facebook’s internal Workplace platform for employee communication, which Recode viewed. “Why are we standing by and letting our platform be used to threaten and incite violence?” This isn’t the first time Facebook has been accused of inaction when it comes to enforcing its or other high-profile politicians. But now employees are voicing concerns, arguing that Facebook has an important role to play in setting the standards of acceptability for a world leader’s discourse. “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. As we face additional difficult decisions around content ahead, we’ll continue seeking their honest feedback,” a Facebook spokesperson said in a statement to Recode, adding that Facebook will support employees who participate in the virtual walkout Monday by not requiring them to use their own paid time off. “How do you expect us to work at a company that supports a man who is constantly inciting violence and bigotry in this country?” another employee wrote on Zuckerberg’s internal company post announcing the $10 million donation. The post had more than 200 employee comments as of Monday morning, most of them critical, according to a source who spoke on the condition of anonymity. Some employees, however, seem to line up behind Zuckerberg, with one commenter saying that “probably the silent majority” of Facebook employees support the CEO. Another employee proposed running a company-wide survey to gauge whether or not that’s true. In a , a narrow majority of Americans are in favor of moderating Trump’s speech online, with 54 percent of respondents saying they support Trump being fact-checked on social media.