Trump called Zuckerberg after Twitter flagged controversial tweets: Report

San Francisco, June 1 (IANS) With the White House and Twitter at war over flagging certain controversial tweets by Donald Trump, the US President and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg reportedly spoke on the phone and discussed how to deal with such a situation.

According to a report in Axios, the call was described by both sides as productive.

In a public Facebook post, Zuckerberg later said: "I've been struggling with how to respond to the President's tweets and posts all day. Personally, I have a visceral negative reaction to this kind of divisive and inflammatory rhetoric".

"But I'm responsible for reacting not just in my personal capacity but as the leader of an institution committed to free expression," he added.

Trump last week signed an executive order in a bid to strip social media platforms of some of the legal protections that they enjoy.

Trump's offensive came on the back of fact checks by Twitter which took the form of a hyperlink that tagged onto exactly two of Trump's tweets and said "Get the facts about mail-in ballots".

Even after the executive order was issued, Twitter flagged a fresh tweet from Trump about the Minneapolis violence, saying that the tweet violated Twitter policies about "glorifying violence".

Zuckerberg said that unlike Twitter, "we do not have a policy of putting a warning in front of posts that may incite violence because we believe that if a post incites violence, it should be removed regardless of whether it is newsworthy, even if it comes from a politician".

"I disagree strongly with how the President spoke about this, but I believe people should be able to see this for themselves, because ultimately accountability for those in positions of power can only happen when their speech is scrutinized out in the open".

Some Facebook employees were even not happy with the social media giant's decision to not take any action on the controversial posts by Trump flagged by Twitter.

Some of these employees called on Facebook executives to reconsider the decision to keep Trump's posts about mail-in ballots and the Minnesota protests.

On Sunday, Google and YouTube put a black ribbon on its home page in the US, showing solidarity for protests against the death of George Floyd, an unarmed black man, in police custody.

"We stand in support of racial equality, and all those who search for it," the message read on the Google home page. The same message was also placed on the US home page of Google-owned YouTube.

--IANS

na/