Facebook publicly tears itself apart over Mark Zuckerberg's decision to keep up Trump's posts about the George Floyd protests

• Internal divisions at Facebook over moderating speech have, unusually, spilled out into the public.
• Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said on Friday that the company would leave up a post by President Donald Trump that appeared to threaten US protesters. Twitter had put the post on its platform behind a block for "glorifying violence."
• Zuckerberg's decision appears to have enraged Facebook employees, many of whom expressed dismay on Twitter.

Division at Facebook over upper management's response to posts by President Donald Trump is spilling out into the public sphere.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg wrote in a post on Friday that the platform would take no action against a post of Trump's about the George Floyd protests in Minneapolis in which the president said, "When the looting starts, the shooting starts."

Twitter placed a warning tag on that post on its platform for violating its policies on "glorifying violence." The tweet wasn't deleted, but Twitter users had to click through the warning to view it.

Facebook also has rules against inciting violence, but Zuckerberg said it found the post didn't breach them.

"I know many people are upset that we've left the President's posts up, but 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," Zuckerberg wrote.

He added: "We decided to leave it up because the National Guard 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."

This decision appears to have dumbfounded many at Facebook, some of whom used its rival platform to express dismay.

"I'm a FB employee that completely disagrees with Mark's decision to do nothing about Trump's recent posts, which clearly incite violence," an employee in product research and development tweeted. "I'm not alone inside of FB. There isn't a neutral position on racism."

—Stirman (@stirman) May 30, 2020

"Mark Zuckerberg doesn't understand state violence," a designer tweeted.

—Nick Inzucchi (@ninzucchi) May 30, 2020

"I work at Facebook and I am not proud of how we're showing up," an engineer tweeted. "The majority of coworkers I've spoken to feel the same way."

—Jason Toff (@jasontoff) June 1, 2020

"Inaction is choosing the status-quo," an employee wrote. "I know many of my coworkers feel the same."

—Sam Saliba (@srsaliba) June 1, 2020

"Trump's glorification of violence on Facebook is disgusting and it should absolutely be flagged or removed from our platforms," another engineer tweeted. "I categorically disagree with any policy that does otherwise."

—Brandon Dail (@aweary) May 29, 2020

"FB's position is wrong and an insult to black people," a product designer at Facebook Messenger tweeted.

—Trevor Phillippi (@trevorphillippi) May 31, 2020

Senior employees also added their voices to the dissent. "Mark is wrong, and I will endeavor in the loudest possible way to change his mind," tweeted Ryan Freitas, the company's director of product design for News Feed.

—Ryan Freitas (@ryanchris) June 1, 2020

One employee argued that the company should have made an exception to its policy to take action against Trump's post.

—David Gillis (@davegillis) May 31, 2020

Other Facebookers chimed in underneath this tweet in agreement, saying the company should think more carefully about the spirit of its policies.

"If we're only willing to enforce our standards based on (presumed) intended meaning, and never on apparent meaning, we're always giving bad actors room to play the 'I didn't mean it that way' card. A very slippery slope," one person tweeted.

—Josiah (@jgulden) June 1, 2020

"David said it much better than I could and reflects how many @Facebook employees feel right now," another tweeted.

—Jake Blakeley (@Blake_Jakely) May 31, 2020

Not all the employee public messaging was anti-Zuckerberg, with some employees weighing in to defend the CEO's decision.

Andrew Bosworth, a senior executive known as "Boz," tweeted in support of the Black Lives Matter movement but stopped short of commenting on the company's actions. Bosworth famously posted an internal memo in 2016 justifying any growth on Facebook, even if it led to people being harmed or killed.

The Verge reported that employees had used the company's internal messaging platform to try to pressure management over its decision to leave Trump's post up.

"Makes me sad and frankly ashamed," one wrote, according to the publication. "Hopefully this wasn't the final assessment? Hopefully there is still someone somewhere discussing how and why this is clearly advocating for violence?"

"It's honestly really hard for me to take seriously the words of support from our leadership this morning if we allow content like this on our platform," another said. "Whatever we are getting from not acting on this, is it worth allowing clear, violent threats against Black protesters?"

According to the report, one employee posted a GIF from a World War II sketch on the show "That Mitchell and Webb Look" in which an SS guard asks nervously, "Are we the baddies?"

"Waking up every morning at FB now and having this run through my head, immediately followed by 'yes, apparently,'" the employee wrote alongside the GIF.

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