Facebook employees protest Zuckerberg's inaction over Trump's call for violence: 'Mark is wrong'
Facebook employees are said to be unhappy over Mark Zuckerberg's decision to leave up a post by Donald Trump where he seemingly threatened those protesting George Floyd's death with violence and have promised to take the issue up with the CEO.
Protests in Minneapolis, where Floyd died on Memorial Day when police officer Derek Chauvin kneeled on his neck for over eight minutes, turned violent and resulted in cars being set ablaze, buildings being vandalized, and a police precinct being set on fire.
The president had subsequently tweeted criticizing the lack of leadership from city's mayor Jacob Frey, promised to send in the National Guard to "get the job done right" and threatened to shoot protesters, who he called "THUGS."
"I can’t stand back and watch this happen to a great American City, Minneapolis," he wrote. "A total lack of leadership. Either the very weak Radical Left Mayor, Jacob Frey, get his act together and bring the City under control, or I will send in the National Guard and get the job done right."
"These THUGS are dishonoring the memory of George Floyd, and I won’t let that happen," he continued. "Just spoke to Governor Tim Walz and told him that the Military is with him all the way. Any difficulty and we will assume control but, when the looting starts, the shooting starts."
The tweet was quickly affixed with a warning label by Twitter for violating their rules about "glorifying violence", though it was allowed to stay up for the sake of public interest.
Facebook, on the other hand, took no such action and allowed the post, which many said was inciting violence against those taking to the streets, to stay up on its platform. It is a decision that did not sit well with some of the social media giant's employees, who felt their rival's response was the correct one.
"Mark is wrong, and I will endeavor in the loudest possible way to change his mind," tweeted Ryan Freitas, reportedly the director of product design for Facebook’s News Feed. He added in a separate tweet that he had mobilized "50+ likeminded folks" into inspiring "something that looks like internal change."
All seven engineers on the team maintaining the React code library which supports Facebook’s apps also spoke out against Zuckerberg. "Facebook’s recent decision to not act on posts that incite violence ignores other options to keep our community safe," they said in a joint statement. "We implore the Facebook leadership to #TakeAction"
Nate Butler, listed as working in the Facebook Design department, said that Facebook was "on the wrong side of this."
"'I've shared others posts, but I need to be clear–FB is on the wrong side of this and I can't support their stance. Doing nothing isn't Being Bold. Many of us feel this way," he wrote.
Jason Toff, a Facebook director of product management, added, "I work at Facebook and I am not proud of how we’re showing up. The majority of coworkers I’ve spoken to feel the same way. We are making our voice heard."
The tweets followed in the heels of a post by Zuckerberg where he explained his decision to not take down Trump's post from his platform and insisted he has a "visceral negative reaction" to the president's "divisive and inflammatory rhetoric."
"I'm responsible for reacting not just in my personal capacity but as the leader of an institution committed to free expression," he had argued. "I know many people are upset that we've left the President's posts up, but our position is that we should enable as much expression as possible unless it will cause imminent risk of specific harms or dangers spelled out in clear policies."