After Twitter took a stand against Donald Trump last week by labeling a tweet by the president that suggested violence should be used against protesters with a warning label, many employees at Facebook hoped Mark Zuckerberg would take a similar tact.
He did not and took no action to amend or remove a string of inflammatory posts by President Trump on the social network he created, including one containing the line “when the looting starts, the shooting starts.”
Following a “virtual walkout” on Monday by hundreds of employees who were enraged at Zuckerberg’s inaction, he addressed his decision in a video chat with Facebook workers. During the question-and-answer session, Zuckerberg said he made a “tough decision” but that it “was pretty thorough,” according to The New York Times.
According to Zuckerberg, the platform’s policies around free speech “show that the right action where we are right now is to leave this up.”
“I knew that I would have to separate out my personal opinion,” he said. “Knowing that when we made this decision we made, it was going to lead to a lot of people upset inside the company, and the media criticism we were going to get.”
In addition to employees, some of whom have resigned over Zuckerberg refusing to remove the president’s posts, politicians and civil rights organizations have also criticized the Facebook founder’s position.
Likely in an attempt to mend some fences, the 36-year-old CEO did commit $10 million to groups working on “racial justice” issues.
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