TOPLINE Dozens of Facebook employees staged a virtual walkout on Monday, in an escalation of protests against CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s failure to act on President Trump’s “When the looting starts, the shooting starts” post.



KEY FACTS



<ul class="wp-block-list"><li>Staff members flocked to rival platform Twitter for a second day, to denounce Zuckerberg’s “do-nothing” approach to Trump’s post that threatened violence toward George Floyd protesters.</li></ul>



<ul class="wp-block-list"><li>One employee, Owen Anderson, announced in a&nbsp;<a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://twitter.com/OwenResistor/status/1267568422327447552?s=20" target="_blank">tweet</a>&nbsp;that he had quit the company.</li></ul>



<ul class="wp-block-list"><li>“To be clear, this was in the works for a while.&nbsp;But after last week, I am happy to no longer support policies and values I vehemently disagree with,” he wrote.</li></ul>



<ul class="wp-block-list"><li>Employees have also been circulating messages internally, with one staffer writing on a staff message board: “The hateful rhetoric advocating violence against black demonstrators by the U.S. President does not warrant defense under the guise of freedom of expression,” the&nbsp;New York Times&nbsp;<a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/01/technology/facebook-employee-protest-trump.html" target="_blank">reported</a>. Others urged Zuckerberg to take down Trump’s post.</li></ul>



<ul class="wp-block-list"><li>Facebook spokesman Andy Stone said employees will not have the protest days taken out of their vacation allowance, Reuters&nbsp;<a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://uk.reuters.com/article/us-facebook-trump-employee-criticism/facebook-staffers-walk-out-saying-trumps-posts-should-be-reined-in-idUKKBN2382D0" target="_blank">reported</a>.</li></ul>



<ul class="wp-block-list"><li>The walkout, staged virtually as all Facebook employees are working remotely in the pandemic,was triggered by Facebook&#8217;s refusal to take action over Trump&#8217;s inflammatory posts, while Twitter took the unprecedented step of flagging his comment for “glorifying violence.”</li></ul>



<ul class="wp-block-list"><li>Zuckerberg has reportedly pushed the company’s weekly employee Q &amp; A session from Friday to Tuesday.</li></ul>



CRUCIAL COMMENT



In a joint statement, a number of the virtual demonstrators tweeted: “Facebook’s recent decision to not act on posts that incite violence ignores other options to keep our community safe. We implore the Facebook leadership to #TakeAction.”



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https://twitter.com/dan_abramov/status/1267544361929256966?s=20
</div></figure>



TANGENT



Online therapy company Talkspace has cut ties with Facebook over the issue. CEO Oren Frank&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/orenfrank/status/1267504648275005440?s=20" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">tweeted</a>&nbsp;on Monday: “We at Talkspace discontinued our partnership discussions with Facebook today. We will not support a platform that incites violence, racism, and lies. #BlackLivesMatter.”



NEWS PEG



President Trump has driven a wedge between Facebook staff and the social network&#8217;s founder. Facebook&#8217;s no-leak culture, and the largely united front between management and staff had largely weathered previous storms in its march to &#8220;connect the world.” That accord was shattered in a flood of tweets condemning Zuckerberg&#8217;s decision to keep Trump&#8217;s post on the site. Before the walkout, several senior employees blasted Zuckerberg’s defence of keeping the post on the site. Design manager Jason Stirman tweeted on Monday: “I‘m a FB employee that completely disagrees with Mark’s decision to do nothing about Trump’s recent posts, which clearly incite violence. I’m not alone inside of FB. There isn’t a neutral position on racism.”



In a post on Monday, Zuckerberg said Trump’s post and use of the historically racially charged phrase did not breach Facebook policies. “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,” he&nbsp;<a href="https://www.facebook.com/zuck/posts/10111961824369871" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">said</a>.



KEY BACKGROUND



The death of George Floyd after white policeman Derek Chauvin knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes last Monday sparked outrage across the U.S. and subsequent protests in more than 75 cities. <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/isabeltogoh/2020/06/01/corporate-donations-tracker-here-are-the-companies-giving-millions-to-anti-racism-efforts/#701eab0037dc">Companies</a>, facing public pressure to speak out, have released statements pledging support to the black community, including Amazon, Netflix, Twitter and Peloton. On Monday, Zuckerberg<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/isabeltogoh/2020/06/01/facebook-pledges-10-million-to-racial-justice-campaigns/#2c2f71374250"> announced</a> Facebook is donating $10 million to groups campaigning for racial justice.



&#8211;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/isabeltogoh/">Isabel Togoh</a>, Forbes Staff, <a href="https://www.forbes.com/business">Business</a>

gettyimages-1176382466-594×594

Facebook Employees Stage Virtual Revolt Against Zuckerberg’s Inaction On Trump’s ‘Shooting’ Post

Mark Zuckerberg may have been feeling vindicated on Wednesday.&nbsp;



After what’s been a horrible year for his&nbsp;company’s reputation, Facebook surprised Wall Street&nbsp;by posting record profits for its fourth quarter, and revenues that beat expectations.



The company reported earnings per share of $2.38, up from the $1.44 it reported a year earlier and also&nbsp;ahead of forecasts&nbsp;for $2.17. Net earnings for the quarter&nbsp;totalled&nbsp;$6.9 billion.



The company’s shares were up more than 8% to $162.3 in after-hours trading in New York, which will come as some relief to investors—Facebook’s stock has declined by roughly 30% in the past six months.



“We’ve fundamentally changed how we run this company,” Zuckerberg said on an earnings call, adding that Facebook had invested “billions of dollars in security.”



READ MORE | <a href="https://www.forbesafrica.com/technology/2019/01/29/zuckerberg-to-integrate-whatsapp-instagram-and-facebook-messenger/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label="Zuckerberg to integrate WhatsApp, Instagram and Facebook Messenger (opens in a new tab)">Zuckerberg to integrate WhatsApp, Instagram and Facebook Messenger</a>



Wednesday&#8217;s results were in strong contrast to the flurry of criticism levelled at the company recently around its privacy practices, including from tech giant Apple. This week&nbsp;the iPhone maker blocked Facebook&nbsp;from distributing internal iOS apps that its staff used for testing new services, a major shot across the bow in what’s becoming a tense battle over privacy standards.&nbsp;



But none of that seems to matter to Wall Street right now. Not only&nbsp;is Facebook’s bottom line rising, its user base is still growing too, countering much of the recent discourse about an exodus of users from the platform.



The company said Wednesday that 2.32 billion people were active each month across its platforms, including WhatsApp and Instagram, versus 2.27 billion the previous quarter.



The number of people using Facebook daily was up 9% from last year to 1.52 billion, led by growth in India, Indonesia and the Philippines, the company’s chief financial officer David Wehner said on an earnings call on Wednesday.



Wehner also sought to downplay the impact of critical press articles over the past year on Facebook’s business and growth. “I’d let the numbers stand for themselves,’ he said. “We are growing in all regions.”



Zuckerberg said that the Stories feature on Facebook and Instagram would be where some of the greatest potential lay for generating more advertising dollars, by also using artificial intelligence-powered software to target Facebook users more accurately. “Stories on FB is growing quickly,” he said, though he also admitted, “We started a bit later and execution wasn’t as great as it needed to be.”



Wehner evaded a question on the earnings call about how much time people spent on Facebook versus Instagram, sidestepping concerns that its flagship network is falling out of favor.



“The daily active user trends that we’re giving do paint the picture, which is stability in the developed markets and growth for Facebook Blue in developing markets,” Wehner said. “Time spent is not our focus, and our focus is meaningful social interactions. Daily active user trends tell the story broadly.”&nbsp;



Advertisers, however, tend to spend more money on targeting users in developed markets, so even while signups to Facebook are growing in developing markets and even in the U.S., there may still be some concerns about return on investment if users in North America and Europe are spending only fleeting moments on the site. For now though, investors seem pleased enough with the growth numbers and the revenue beat.



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://specials-images.forbesimg.com/imageserve/5c52273531358e522e540e85/960x0.jpg?fit=scale" alt="Facebook's monthly active users continued to grow, reaching 2.3 billion in the fourth quarter of 2018. "/><figcaption>Facebook&#8217;s monthly active users continued to grow, reaching 2.3 billion in the fourth quarter of 2018. GRAPHIC VIA FACEBOOK</figcaption></figure>



&#8211;Parmy Olson Forbes Staff

Global Technology Leaders Attend “Tech for Good” Meeting With France’s President Emmanuel Macron

Facebook Profits Defy Critics – Zuckerberg Vows Company Has Changed

Facebook Inc Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg is planning to unify the underlying messaging infrastructure of the WhatsApp, Instagram and Facebook Messenger services and incorporate end-to-end encryption into these apps, the New York Times reported.



The three services will, however, continue as stand-alone apps, the report said, citing four people involved in the effort.



Facebook said it is working on adding end-to-end encryption, which protects messages from being viewed by anyone except the participants in a conversation, to more of its messaging products, and considering ways to make it easier for users to connect across networks.



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">“There is a lot of discussion and debate as we begin the long process of figuring out all the details of how this will work,” a spokesperson said.</blockquote>



After the changes, a Facebook user, for instance, will be able send an encrypted message to someone who has only a WhatsApp account, according to the New York Times report.



Integrating the messaging services could make it harder for antitrust regulators to break up Facebook by undoing its acquisitions of WhatsApp and Instagram, said Sam Weinstein, a professor at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law.



“If Facebook is worried about that then one way it can defend itself is to integrate those services,” Weinstein said.



But Weinstein said breaking up Facebook is viewed as an “extreme remedy” by regulators, particularly in the United States, so concerns over antitrust scrutiny may not have been a factor behind the integration.



<h4 class="wp-block-heading">MAJOR TRADEOFFS</h4>



Some former Facebook security engineers and an outside encryption expert said the plan could be good news for user privacy, in particular by extending end-to-end encryption.



“I’m cautiously optimistic it’s a good thing,” said former Facebook Chief Security Officer Alex Stamos, who now teaches at Stanford University. “My fear was that they were going to drop end-to-end encryption.”



However, the technology does not always conceal metadata &#8211; information about who is talking to whom &#8211; sparking concern among some researchers that the data might be shared.



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Any metadata integration likely will let Facebook learn more about users, linking identifiers such as phone numbers and email addresses for those using the services independently of each other.



Facebook could use that data to charge more for advertising and targeted services, although it also would have to forgo ads based on message content in Messenger and Instagram.



Other major tradeoffs will have to be made too, Stamos and others said.



Messenger allows strangers to contact people without knowing their phone numbers, for example, increasing the risk of stalking and approaches to children.



Systems based on phone numbers have additional privacy concerns, because governments and other entities can easily extract location information from them.



Stamos said he hoped Facebook would get public input from terrorism experts, child safety officers, privacy advocates and others and be transparent in its reasoning when it makes decisions on the details.



“It should be an open process, because you can’t have it all,” Stamos said. -Reuters



-Munsif Vengattil, Jan Wolfe and Joseph Menn 



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Tag: Zuckerberg

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Facebook Employees Stage Virtual Revolt Against Zuckerberg’s Inaction On Trump’s ‘Shooting’ Post

Facebook Profits Defy Critics – Zuckerberg Vows Company Has Changed

Zuckerberg to integrate WhatsApp, Instagram and Facebook Messenger