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
- 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.
- One employee, Owen Anderson, announced in a tweet that he had quit the company.
- “To be clear, this was in the works for a while. But after last week, I am happy to no longer support policies and values I vehemently disagree with,” he wrote.
- 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 New York Times reported. Others urged Zuckerberg to take down Trump’s post.
- Facebook spokesman Andy Stone said employees will not have the protest days taken out of their vacation allowance, Reuters reported.
- The walkout, staged virtually as all Facebook employees are working remotely in the pandemic,was triggered by Facebook’s refusal to take action over Trump’s inflammatory posts, while Twitter took the unprecedented step of flagging his comment for “glorifying violence.”
- Zuckerberg has reportedly pushed the company’s weekly employee Q & A session from Friday to Tuesday.
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.”
TANGENT
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Online therapy company Talkspace has cut ties with Facebook over the issue. CEO Oren Frank tweeted 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’s founder. Facebook’s no-leak culture, and the largely united front between management and staff had largely weathered previous storms in its march to “connect the world.” That accord was shattered in a flood of tweets condemning Zuckerberg’s decision to keep Trump’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 said.
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. Companies, facing public pressure to speak out, have released statements pledging support to the black community, including Amazon, Netflix, Twitter and Peloton. On Monday, Zuckerberg announced Facebook is donating $10 million to groups campaigning for racial justice.
–Isabel Togoh, Forbes Staff, Business
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