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Facebook employees stage virtual walkout

On Friday, the President of the United States decided that the best way to close off a tweet was with the phrase “when the looting starts, the shooting starts” in response to protests in Minneapolis following the murder of George Floyd.

The tweet was however censored by Twitter, which stated “This Tweet violated the Twitter Rules about glorifying violence.” However, Twitter has determined that it may be in the public’s interest for the Tweet to remain accessible.

While the tweet can still be viewed, it requires the user to actively reveal it. The official Twitter account for The White House seemingly didn’t like that and copied and pasted the tweet only for it to meet the exact same fate.

Somewhere that Trump’s words aren’t being blocked or even being granted a warning for is Facebook.

The exact same message copied word for word from Twitter is over on the official Donald J Trump Facebook page sans any sort of warning or threat of removal and Facebook employees don’t seem to like that.

This is because according to a report from CNBC, 600 Facebook employees have taken part in a virtual walkout.

The issue appears to be with regards to Facebook not upholding its own community standards. Just like Twitter, Facebook has a policy against violence and incitement of violence. In short, you can’t threaten somebody over Facebook and get away with it. Of course that doesn’t seem to be the case if you happen to be the US President and the people you’re threatening are your own people.

A Facebook employee participating in the walkout told CNBC that Mark Zuckerberg would host a town hall meeting with employees this Thursday to address the situation.

Last week Zuckerberg infamously said that he doesn’t believe Facebook should be the “arbiter of truth”.

On Sunday the Facebook CEO announced that the firm would donate $10 million to groups working on racial justice while acknowledging that money can’t fix the problem.

Here’s an idea Zuck, just off the top of our heads. How about you start the fight for equality in your own house? A president made a violent statement threatening his people and that can remain up, but if Jimmy tells John he’s going to slap him he’ll get censored?

Nobody is asking Facebook to be an arbiter of truth, only that you stop the spread of misinformation and treat users fairly, no matter their job title. This is your chance at redemption from the catastrophe that was Myanmar Facebook, and right now, you’re failing about as much as you were then.

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