Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg has defended his decision not to interfere with posts by U.S. President Donald Trump, U.S. media reported, after the social media giant’s hands-off policy sparked outrage and prompted some employees to quit.
Social media platforms have faced calls to moderate the President’s comments, most recently because of the unrest gripping America in the wake of an unarmed black man’s death during arrest as a white policeman knelt on his neck.
The row began last week when Mr. Zuckerberg said Facebook would not remove or flag Mr. Trump’s posts that appeared to encourage violence against those protesting police racism, even as the social media titan Twitter put warning labels on some of the President’s tweets over accuracy issues or the glorification of violence.
Mr. Zuckerberg told employees in a video conference on Tuesday he talked to Trump on the phone after the decision, and that he “used that opportunity to make him know I felt this post was inflammatory and harmful, and let him know where we stood on it”, The New York Times reported, citing a recording of the call.
The CEO was referring to a post by the President that said “when the looting starts, the shooting starts” — the same comment on Twitter was still visible but behind a warning label.
Facebook’s move prompted intense scrutiny and dissent from employees, and it was a “tough decision” over content that had upset him personally, Mr. Zuckerberg told around 25,000 staff who had tuned in, according to the tech website Recode.
“I knew that the stakes were very high on this, and knew a lot of people would be upset if we made the decision to leave it up,” Mr. Zuckerberg said on the call, not backing down from the policy, Recode reported.
But Mr. Zuckerberg said that Facebook was exploring whether it should amend the policy on such content or find other options to mark it instead of outright removal, according to one person on the call cited by Bloomberg.
Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg has defended his decision not to interfere with posts by U.S. President Donald Trump, U.S. media reported, after the social media giant’s hands-off policy sparked outrage and prompted some employees to quit.
Social media platforms have faced calls to moderate the President’s comments, most recently because of the unrest gripping America in the wake of an unarmed black man’s death during arrest as a white policeman knelt on his neck.
The row began last week when Mr. Zuckerberg said Facebook would not remove or flag Mr. Trump’s posts that appeared to encourage violence against those protesting police racism, even as the social media titan Twitter put warning labels on some of the President’s tweets over accuracy issues or the glorification of violence.
Mr. Zuckerberg told employees in a video conference on Tuesday he talked to Trump on the phone after the decision, and that he “used that opportunity to make him know I felt this post was inflammatory and harmful, and let him know where we stood on it”, The New York Times reported, citing a recording of the call.
The CEO was referring to a post by the President that said “when the looting starts, the shooting starts” — the same comment on Twitter was still visible but behind a warning label.
Facebook’s move prompted intense scrutiny and dissent from employees, and it was a “tough decision” over content that had upset him personally, Mr. Zuckerberg told around 25,000 staff who had tuned in, according to the tech website Recode.
“I knew that the stakes were very high on this, and knew a lot of people would be upset if we made the decision to leave it up,” Mr. Zuckerberg said on the call, not backing down from the policy, Recode reported.
But Mr. Zuckerberg said that Facebook was exploring whether it should amend the policy on such content or find other options to mark it instead of outright removal, according to one person on the call cited by Bloomberg.
