A couple of Facebook employees decided to stage a virtually boycott today, in response to the company’s stance on Donald Trump’s posts and in light of the protests for George Floyd’s murder. The virtual walk-out involved employees of Facebook requesting time off and creating an out-of-office response to their email accounts alerting senders of their organizing.
As pointed out by numerous publications, the phrase Trump used, “when the looting starts, the shooting starts,” originated from the 1960s, when a white police chief in Miami responded to civil unrest in black neighborhoods. Trump denied any knowledge of this racially charged history when he himself used the slang when attempting to offer an explanation for his choice of words.
The particular post is still available to view on Facebook, despite fellow social media site Twitter hiding the tweet and applying a notice over it for violating site rules about glorifying violence. Facebook did nothing.
Where some Facebook employees are virtually protesting in response to this, others have started to petition for more diversity within the company, while others have threatened to resign if Zuckerberg doesn’t change his stance.
Over the weekend, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg penned a lengthy statement defending the company’s position to keep the violent post up on the site that actually contradicts a previous vow Zuckerberg made to Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. A few months ago he said, “If anyone, including a politician, is saying things that can cause, that is calling for violence or could risk imminent physical harm…. we will take that content down.” In Zuckerberg’s response, however, he states: “we think people need to know if the government is planning to deploy force.”
A spokesperson for the social networking site said in a statement, “We recognize the pain many of our people are feeling right now, especially our Black community,” they continued, “We encourage employees to speak openly when they disagree with leadership. As we face additional difficult decisions around content ahead, we’ll continue seeking their honest feedback.”
