- More than 140 scientists doing research funded by
Mark Zuckerberg , and his wife, have signed a letter sayingFacebook should not let President Donald Trump use its platforms to "spread both misinformation and incendiary statements." - The researchers said that it was contradicting their goals of using technology to "prevent and eradicate disease, improve childhood education, and reform the criminal justice system."
- The letter comes amid heightening tensions at Facebook over its decision not to take action against President Trump's controversial post about the George Floyd protests last week, in which he wrote: "when the looting starts, the shooting starts."
- Following Zuckerberg's statement defending the decision to leave the post up, Facebook has faced the largest public protest in its 16-year history.
- The three scientists who organized the letter all have grants from the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative program.
More than 140 scientists doing research funded by Mark Zuckerberg, and his wife, Priscilla Chan, have said Facebook should not allow President Donald Trump to use the platform to "spread both misinformation and incendiary statements."
In a letter sent to the Facebook CEO on Saturday, the researchers asked him to "consider stricter policies on misinformation and incendiary language that harms people...especially in our current climate that is grappling with racial injustice."
The scientists, including more than 60 professors at leading US research institutions and one Nobel laureate, said that the spread of "deliberate misinformation and divisive language" contradicts their goals of using technology to "prevent and eradicate disease, improve childhood education and reform the criminal justice system."
The letter comes amid heightening tensions at Facebook over its decision not to take action against a controversial message from President Trump, who last week posted "when the looting starts, the shooting starts" in response to the anti-racism protests sweeping the country.
Both Twitter and Snapchat determined the post violated their rules on glorifying violence, but Facebook disagreed.
Zuckerberg defended the company's decision to leave up the post by the president.
He said it did not break Facebook's rules because "references meant we read it as a warning about state action, and we think people need to know if the government is planning to deploy force.
His comments sparked the most significant public protest in the company's 16-year history, with hundreds of employees staging a virtual walkout and several dozens also tweeting their objections to the decision.
On Friday, Zuckerberg publicly promised to re-examine the social network's policies on state violence.
In a letter to employees, the CEO wrote: "We're going to review our policies allowing discussion and threats of state use of force to see if there are any amendments we should adopt. There are two specific situations under this policy that we're going to review. The first is around instances of excessive use of police or state force ... The second case is around when a country has ongoing civil unrest or violent conflicts."
Thousands of people have taken to the streets for the second weekend in a row to protest police brutality and racism after the death of George Floyd, a 46-year-old black man from Minneapolis who died in police custody.
The three scientists who organized the letter all have grants from the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative program. They said the letter had more than 160 signatories and that around 10% were employees of foundations run by Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan.
The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative said in a statement that the philanthropic organization was separate from Facebook and said, "we are grateful for our staff, partners and grantees" and "respect their right to voice their opinions, including on Facebook policies," according to the Guardian.