By Deepa Seetharaman and Jeff Horwitz
Facebook Inc. Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg, addressing
employees in a highly charged town-hall meeting on Tuesday,
defended his decision to preserve a controversial post from
President Trump but said he was open to some tweaks in how the
company deals with such content.
Mr. Zuckerberg spoke amid mounting outrage from insiders and
civil-rights activists that the message -- in which Mr. Trump
called protesters thugs and warned: "When the looting starts, the
shooting starts" -- was tantamount to a call for violence, and
therefore a violation of Facebook's rules. Facebook took no action
on the post, while Twitter Inc. shielded the same message from
public view along with a label saying it glorified violence.
Mr. Zuckerberg disagreed that Mr. Trump's post broke Facebook's
rules, but he said he would dispatch teams to study other options
for handling objectionable posts beyond taking them down or leaving
them up, according to a person who attended the meeting. Mr.
Zuckerberg said he would personally review the options submitted by
the teams.
The employee meeting, which was initially scheduled for Thursday
and was moved earlier, came a day after some employees participated
in a "virtual walkout" opposing the policy decision, with more than
a dozen airing their grievances on Twitter. Two software engineers
publicly said they quit the company, in part because of what they
called Facebook's failure to enforce its own rules when it comes to
Mr. Trump.
The meeting wasn't streamed publicly, as some internal Facebook
events have been recently, but employees said Mr. Zuckerberg didn't
give ground on the issue.
Few employees expected Mr. Zuckerberg to change his stance going
into Tuesday's town hall, according to people who attended the
meeting. Some internal comments on Mr. Zuckerberg's livestream
reflected a "deep sadness" about his stance, one of the people
said.
One employee asked who Mr. Zuckerberg had talked to when
deciding how to address Mr. Trump's posts. The only black person
Mr. Zuckerberg mentioned was the company's head of diversity,
according to an employee. Mr. Zuckerberg also said the company
consulted with outside groups before choosing its current course,
but didn't specify which ones.
Mr. Zuckerberg also argued that employees should view the
controversy within the larger context of activity on the platform.
The initial posting on Facebook of the video of George Floyd's
arrest and death while in police custody in Minneapolis, a post
that led to widespread outrage about those events, showed that the
platform was a force for good, he said. Mr. Zuckerberg said that
should be weighed against concerns about how the president was
using the platform.
Mr. Zuckerberg also noted his private philanthropic work related
to injustice in criminal sentencing and criticized other companies'
statements of support for Black Lives Matter.
"We're kind of seeing every corporate CEO across the country
right now just stand up and say, 'All right, yeah, black lives
matter, we stand with our black community," Mr. Zuckerberg said,
according to a person who attended the meeting. "I think that's
important to say and to remind people to say it, but I don't think
it takes any particular courage to say those things when there's a
huge crisis. What I hope people can look at is the track record
that I and other leaders have of focusing on these issues."
Mr. Zuckerberg has some support among Facebook's more than
48,000 full-time employees, according to people inside the company,
and many employees have elected not to wade into the tense
political debate. A vocal faction of the company has indicated they
aren't satisfied with the company's stance.
"It's crystal clear today that leadership refuses to stand with
us," said Brandon Dail, a Facebook engineer, in a Twitter post.
Mr. Zuckerberg has said he doesn't believe private companies
should regulate political speech and that while he personally found
Mr. Trump's posts "deeply offensive," he thinks it is better for
the debate over his comments to be held publicly rather than
suppressed. Employees have pushed back, in some cases publicly,
saying Facebook needs to enforce its content rules, rather than
make exceptions for powerful political leaders. Some have also said
the company should take more responsibility for the way its
platform allows incendiary content to spread faster than more
moderate views.
"Open and honest discussion has always been a part of Facebook's
culture, " Facebook said in a written statement. "Mark had an open
discussion with employees today, as he has regularly over the
years. He's grateful for their feedback."
Facebook has weathered multiple crises in recent years,
especially since the 2016 election, but the current employee
turmoil amounts to one of the toughest challenges to Mr.
Zuckerberg's leadership since he co-founded the company 16 years
ago.
Since late last week, Mr. Zuckerberg and Chief Operating Officer
Sheryl Sandberg have discussed the policy decision with employees,
especially black executives and employees, as well as civil-rights
leaders. Some participants said they found those meetings largely
unsatisfying.
Three civil-rights leaders -- Vanita Gupta, president and CEO of
the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, Sherrilyn
Ifill, president and director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense
and Educational Fund Inc. and Rashad Robinson, president of Color
of Change -- issued a fiery statement after speaking with Mr.
Zuckerberg and Ms. Sandberg late Monday.
"We are disappointed and stunned by Mark's incomprehensible
explanations for allowing the Trump posts to remain up," they said.
"He did not demonstrate understanding of historic or modern-day
voter suppression and he refuses to acknowledge how Facebook is
facilitating Trump's call for violence against protesters."
Timothy Aveni, an engineer who quit Facebook this week over the
policies, said he was disillusioned because he felt Mr. Zuckerberg
wasn't enforcing his own rules. "Mark always told us that he would
draw the line at speech that calls for violence," Mr. Aveni wrote
on Facebook. "He showed us on Friday that this was a lie."
Mr. Zuckerberg ended the 90-minute session by affirming his
belief that Facebook was ultimately a force for good in the world.
"The net impact of the different things we're doing in the world is
positive," he told employees, according to a person familiar with
his remarks. "I really believe it is."
Write to Deepa Seetharaman at Deepa.Seetharaman@wsj.com and Jeff
Horwitz at Jeff.Horwitz@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
June 02, 2020 19:43 ET (23:43 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2020 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.