By AFP |
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said private social
media platforms "shouldn't be the arbiter of truth of everything that
people say online"
Sci & Tech
Zuckerberg's position has not gone down well with many of his employees
The clash between Twitter and Donald Trump has thrust rival Facebook
into turmoil, with employees
rebelling against CEO Mark Zuckerberg's
refusal to sanction false or inflammatory posts by the US president.
Some Facebook employees put out word of a "virtual walkout" to take place Monday to protest, according to tweeted messages.
"As allies we must stand in the way of danger, not behind. I will be
participating in today's virtual walkout in solidarity with the black
community," tweeted Sara Zhang, one of the Facebook employees in the
action.
Nearly all Facebook employees are working remotely due to the pandemic.
"We recognize the pain many of our people are feeling right now,
especially our Black community," Facebook said in response to the AFP
request for comment.
"We encourage employees to speak openly when they disagree with leadership."
Facebook was aware some workers planned the virtual walkout and did not plan to dock their pay.
"Mark is wrong, and I will endeavor in the loudest possible way to
change his mind," Ryan Freitas, the design director of Facebook's News
Feed, tweeted Sunday, adding that he was organizing about 50 other
employees who share his view.
At the root of the discord is Twitter's unprecedented intervention last
week when it tagged two Trump tweets about mail-in ballots with messages
urging people to "get the facts."
Zuckerberg reacted by telling Fox News that private social media
platforms "shouldn't be the arbiter of truth of everything that people
say online." Trump retweeted the interview.
On Friday, Twitter responded once again to a Trump tweet, this time
after he used the platform to warn protesters outraged by the death at
police hands of an unarmed black man that "when the looting starts, the
shooting starts."
Twitter covered up the tweet with a message warning it "violated Twitter
Rules about glorifying violence." Viewers had to click on the message
to see the underlying tweet.
The message also was posted on Facebook, but Zuckerberg decided to let it stand unchallenged.
"I've been struggling with how to respond to the President's tweets and posts all day," he wrote Friday in a post.
"Personally, I have a visceral negative reaction to this kind of divisive and inflammatory rhetoric."
But, Zuckerberg went on to say that "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."
Network in revolt
Twitter and Facebook both have in place systems to combat disinformation
and dangerous content -- appeals to hatred, harassment, incitement to
violence and the like.
But Facebook exempts political personalities and candidates from these restrictions.
Zuckerberg's position has not gone down well with many of his employees.
"I don't know what to do, but I know doing nothing is not acceptable,"
Jason Stirman, a member of Facebook's research and development team,
wrote on Twitter.
Other Facebook employees spoke out on Sunday.
David Gillis, a member of the design team who specializes in product
safety and integrity, said he believed Trump's looting and shooting
tweet "encourages extra-judicial violence and racism."
"While I understand why we chose to stay squarely within the four
corners of our violence and incitement policy, I think it would have
been right for us to make a 'spirit of the policy' exception that took
more context into account," he wrote.
Nate Butler, a Facebook product designer, added: "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."
A presidential call
To make matters worse, US media revealed Sunday that Zuckerberg and Trump spoke by telephone on Friday.
The conversation was "productive," unnamed sources told the Axios news
outlet and CNBC. Facebook would neither confirm nor deny the reports.
The call "destroys" the idea that Facebook is a "neutral arbiter," said Evelyn Douek, a researcher at Harvard Law School.
Like other experts, she questioned whether Facebook's new oversight
board, formed last month to render independent judgments on content,
will have the clout to intervene.
On Saturday, the board offered assurances it was aware there were "many
significant issues related to online content" that people want it to
consider.
Facebook, meanwhile, is directly affected by Trump's counter-attack against Twitter.
The president signed a decree Thursday attacking one of the legal
pillars of the US internet, Section 230, which shields digital platforms
from lawsuits linked to content posted by third parties while giving
them the freedom to intervene as they please to police the exchanges.
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