Facebook will review policies, says Zuckerberg after backlash over Trump posts
Mark Zuckerberg
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has announced that the company will review its policies after facing widespread backlash,including from its own employees, over the decision to leave up controversial posts from Donald Trump.
The social media giant will look at improving content policies while also building products to advance racial justice, the CEO said on Friday in response to the protests in the United States.
The announcement, which came in the form of a letter to employees, appeared aimed at quelling anger inside the company that was so severe it prompted some to quit.
The outrage was sparked when Zuckerberg said Facebook would not remove or flag Trump's recent posts that appeared to encourage violence against those protesting police racism.
''I know many of you think we should have labeled the President’s posts in some way last week,''Zuckerbergsaid in a lengthy Facebook post,referring to his decision not to remove inflammatory content by Trump containing the phrase ''when the looting starts, the shooting starts,'' which has racist originsand wascensored by Twitter, a Facebook rival.
''We’re going to review potential options for handling violating or partially-violating content aside from the binary leave-it-up or take-it-down decisions,''Zuckerberg’s statement continued.
''Our current policy is that if content is actually inciting violence, then the right mitigation is to take that content down – not let people continue seeing it behind a flag. There is no exception to this policy for politicians or newsworthiness. I think this policy is principled and reasonable, but I also respect a lot of the people who think there may be better alternatives, so I want to make sure we hear all those ideas. I started meeting with the team yesterday and we’re continuing the discussion soon.''
Zuckerberg has faced significant backlash over the choice not to remove Trump’s post this week amid nationwide protests over police brutality.