Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is continuing to double down on his decision to leave up posts from President Trump after employees staged a walkout in protest.
Zuckerberg has been coming under fire in recent days for his inaction on several Trump posts after Twitter fact-checked one of the same posts and slapped another with a warning saying it violated its rules against glorifying violence. Facebook employees staged a virtual walkout on Monday over Zuckerberg's policy towards Trump's posts, and some have resigned. Facebook "is on the wrong side of history," one staffer wrote in a resignation post.
In an internal meeting on Tuesday, Zuckerberg defended his "tough decision" to not take action against the Trump posts, arguing that it's the "right action where we are right now is to leave this up" and saying he had to "separate out my personal opinion," The New York Times reports.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Zuckerberg reportedly faced some tough questions from staffers during the call, with one asking, per the Times' Mike Isaac, "Why are the smartest people in the world focused on contorting and twisting our policies to avoid antagonizing Trump?" Isaac wrote that based on everything he's been hearing from the meeting, "this is not going over super well."
In fact, CNN cited one employee who "found Zuckerberg's answers to staff questions at the town hall lacking, and said the CEO risked alienating more of his staff rather than addressing their concerns," while BuzzFeed's Ryan Mac quoted an employee as saying, "This is a disaster."
This comes after Zuckerberg was blasted by civil rights leaders, who spoke with him and subsequently said they're "disappointed and stunned by Mark's incomprehensible explanations for allowing the Trump posts to remain up."
-
Should you add your child to your credit card?The Explainer You can make them an authorized user on your account in order to help them build credit
-
Cracker Barrel crackup: How the culture wars are upending corporate brandingIn the Spotlight Is it 'woke' to leave nostalgia behind?
-
'It's hard to discern what it actually means'Instant Opinion Opinion, comment and editorials of the day
-
Supreme Court allows social media age check lawSpeed Read The court refused to intervene in a decision that affirmed a Mississippi law requiring social media users to verify their ages
-
Nvidia hits $4 trillion milestoneSpeed Read The success of the chipmaker has been buoyed by demand for artificial intelligence
-
X CEO Yaccarino quits after two yearsSpeed Read Elon Musk hired Linda Yaccarino to run X in 2023
-
Musk chatbot Grok praises Hitler on XSpeed Read Grok made antisemitic comments and referred to itself as 'MechaHitler'
-
Disney, Universal sue AI firm over 'plagiarism'Speed Read The studios say that Midjourney copied characters from their most famous franchises
-
Amazon launches 1st Kuiper internet satellitesSpeed Read The battle of billionaires continues in space
-
Test flight of orbital rocket from Europe explodesSpeed Read Isar Aerospace conducted the first test flight of the Spectrum orbital rocket, which crashed after takeoff
-
Apple pledges $500B in US spending over 4 yearsSpeed Read This is a win for Trump, who has pushed to move manufacturing back to the US
