6 ms·

Facebook Employees Criticize Zuckerberg’s Inaction over Trump

62 points by calanya 6y ago

paulydavis 6y ago
Zuckerberg knows he has a large conservative older user base. Losing them I bet is his concern
- randyrand 6y ago
  deleting them is way more controversy generating than not. companies avoid controversy.
  - lysp 6y ago
    to be fair, twitter didn't delete it - only hid it.
    - xibalba 6y ago
      To the general public these are effectively the same.
- ashtonkem 6y ago
  That’s fair, but Zuckerberg has absolutely made his PR situation worse by creating high minded rules and applying them unequally.
- matt_s 6y ago
  I think his concern is the amount of money from political campaigns this coming season. If that stuff was fact-checked, they would not be making as much money. The side effect of people internet hating on stuff on FB is lots of ad revenue for FB (aka page views). It doesn't matter what side is what, if things on FB are fact checked then there is likely going to be less sharing since there would be less content.
  - aforwardslash 6y ago
    Political ads are not fact-checked, per FB policy - https://www.facebook.com/business/help/182222309230722 https://www.facebook.com/business/help/182222309230722
  - gopi 6y ago
    Political ads are a tiny portion of FB revenues, just around 0.5%. In fact, they may be losing money on this as it needs a lot of manual moderation
kukx 6y ago
Is this news or opinion piece? Incendiary is clearly an opinion. "(...)not to take action on incendiary comments posted to the social network by U.S. President Donald Trump."
- hatenberg 6y ago
  Last I checked there is flames everywhere now and he is certainly fanning them.
  - nailer 6y ago
    How is warning people not to loot 'fanning the flames'?
    - derwiki 6y ago
      The exact wording was a reference to what a police chief in Miami said in 1967. It was meant to evoke that event, which could easily be called “fanning the flames.”
      - nailer 6y ago
        > The exact wording was a reference to what a police chief in Miami said in 1967 it was meant to evoke that event Really? I'm pretty sure it was meant to /rhyme/.
        gjeck 6y ago
        Can’t tell if you are trolling or not. Do some reading. https://www.npr.org/2020/05/29/864818368/the-history-behind-when-the-looting-starts-the-shooting-starts https://www.npr.org/2020/05/29/864818368/the-history-behind-...
        nailer 6y ago
        If it's genuinely not obvious, I'm surprised you believe a conspiracy that Trump was secretly refering to an event most people have never heard of, rather than rhyming.
DeonPenny 6y ago
Zuckerberg isn't insane. People in silicon valley sometime forget how much of a bubble they live in. Twitter just effectively started a full-scale war with the federal government. Zuckerberg knows the blowback is coming. I can't see how twitter doesn't become a life long target of the Trump administration to make an example of. If Facebook doesn't want to get caught in the splash zone they might want to back away from this one.
- ForHackernews 6y ago
  > Twitter just effectively started a full-scale war with the federal government. This is kind of true, but also points to just how insane this historical moment is. Can you imagine any prior administration acting this way? Can you imagine Bill Clinton raging out about AOL, or GW Bush trying to sic the FCC on Yahoo because it sent his email to spam?
  - derwiki 6y ago
    Someone should point out to Trump that Google is classifying his emails as spam. It’s true, because I signed up for his newsletter and mark it spam.
    - lowdose 6y ago
      Brilliant
  - CapricornNoble 6y ago
    >>>Can you imagine any prior administration acting this way? I wasn't alive for them, but I wouldn't be surprised if Truman or Eisenhower would crush Twitter in the age of McCarthyism. Although they tended to focus on individuals rather than companies or organizations. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McCarthyism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McCarthyism
    - lacker 6y ago
      Yep. Truman called the press “paid prostitutes of the mind”.
knodi 6y ago
At this point. If Trump can violet TOS and get away with it. Why can’t I or a bot. Side need to chosen and battle needs to be fought. It’s a lose lose for the likes of Twitter but at least Twitter is doing the right thing now.
- aeternum 6y ago
  The Twitter TOS are pretty ridiculous if you read through them. For example you cannot celebrate, praise, or condone murders or mass shootings committed by civilians. However you can celebrate, praise, and condone murders and mass shootings all you'd like if they were committed by governments.
  - lern_too_spel 6y ago
    From Twitter's Glorification of Violence Policy: "Exceptions may be made for violent acts by state actors, where violence was not primarily targeting protected groups." "Exceptions may be made" doesn't sound like "you can [do it] all you'd like."
    - aeternum 6y ago
      Right, but this is another problem which is at the crux of the issue. These exceptions throughout the TOS give Twitter the power to editorialize without requiring them to take on any liability for the content on their site.
throwawaysea 6y ago
Whenever I see articles like this, my BS radar detector goes off. These articles make it seem like huge numbers of employees are up in arms and ready to quit, but really it is almost always a loud vocal minority looking to impose their personal worldview on the company. The only conditions under which a company should react to activist input is if they have done a company wide anonymous poll (and probably of their customer base as well). Otherwise, they will just hear from those who are committed to the cause (radicals/zealots) or have psychological safety to voice their views. Given that big tech companies are mostly SF-based and secondarily Seattle-based, those internal cultures reflect only one perspective (the far-left progressive). Just remember, those far-left progressives make up just 8% of the population (https://hiddentribes.us/profiles https://hiddentribes.us/profiles). There are almost certainly moderate and conservative employees that back Zuckerberg's position as well.
- syockit 6y ago
  But when you sample only Silicon Valley companies including Facebook, the percentage is much higher than 8%.
sjg007 6y ago
As they should. All it takes for evil is for good people to do nothing. FB and Twitter have been weaponized. This reduces the value of their platforms. What do you do when a bully is the most powerful person in the world? Well you stand up to them as a community. Take away his microphone.
kren 6y ago
I don't even believe Trump was glorifying violence, but calling him out as if he did sure could rally the people who are actually starting the violence against innocent businesses and civilians. Too bad Twitter doesn't have to govern themselves. Trump's tweet showed he was concerned, not glorifying. If he wanted to glorify it, he would probably say something more along the lines of "Get in line or we will use our GREAT guns and military and open fire on you thugs." He also wouldn't need riots as an excuse to tweet about such things. Zuckerberg is supporting freedom of speech when his company didn't have to choose to. He is correct that censoring only worsens the problem and it removes opportunities to improve the situation. If Trump were censored, people would not know him or what he is doing as well as they do now. Amidst all the risk to MZ's company and the violence happening around us, his decision is highly courageous and respectable as he is serving the American people and their rights, even though he said himself that he doesn't like what Trump said.
- kren 6y ago
  Besides, even if he were censored, people would see it and repost screenshots anyway
ribble 6y ago
oh noes! lactating soibois gonna throw a hissy!
gentleman11 6y ago
I’m going to be the guy in this thread who says that censorship is scary. Bots need to be stopped, and politically inflammatory fake news needs to be flagged and corrected... but we don’t get to say what we want unless people we hate/fear also get to say what they want.

62 points by calanya 6y ago

paulydavis 6y ago

Zuckerberg knows he has a large conservative older user base. Losing them I bet is his concern

randyrand 6y ago
deleting them is way more controversy generating than not. companies avoid controversy.
- lysp 6y ago
  to be fair, twitter didn't delete it - only hid it.
  - xibalba 6y ago
    To the general public these are effectively the same.
ashtonkem 6y ago
That’s fair, but Zuckerberg has absolutely made his PR situation worse by creating high minded rules and applying them unequally.
matt_s 6y ago
I think his concern is the amount of money from political campaigns this coming season. If that stuff was fact-checked, they would not be making as much money. The side effect of people internet hating on stuff on FB is lots of ad revenue for FB (aka page views). It doesn't matter what side is what, if things on FB are fact checked then there is likely going to be less sharing since there would be less content.
- aforwardslash 6y ago
  Political ads are not fact-checked, per FB policy - https://www.facebook.com/business/help/182222309230722 https://www.facebook.com/business/help/182222309230722
- gopi 6y ago
  Political ads are a tiny portion of FB revenues, just around 0.5%. In fact, they may be losing money on this as it needs a lot of manual moderation

kukx 6y ago

Is this news or opinion piece? Incendiary is clearly an opinion. "(...)not to take action on incendiary comments posted to the social network by U.S. President Donald Trump."

hatenberg 6y ago
Last I checked there is flames everywhere now and he is certainly fanning them.
- nailer 6y ago
  How is warning people not to loot 'fanning the flames'?
  - derwiki 6y ago
    The exact wording was a reference to what a police chief in Miami said in 1967. It was meant to evoke that event, which could easily be called “fanning the flames.”
    - nailer 6y ago
      > The exact wording was a reference to what a police chief in Miami said in 1967 it was meant to evoke that event Really? I'm pretty sure it was meant to /rhyme/.
      - gjeck 6y ago
        Can’t tell if you are trolling or not. Do some reading. https://www.npr.org/2020/05/29/864818368/the-history-behind-when-the-looting-starts-the-shooting-starts https://www.npr.org/2020/05/29/864818368/the-history-behind-...
        nailer 6y ago
        If it's genuinely not obvious, I'm surprised you believe a conspiracy that Trump was secretly refering to an event most people have never heard of, rather than rhyming.

DeonPenny 6y ago

Zuckerberg isn't insane. People in silicon valley sometime forget how much of a bubble they live in. Twitter just effectively started a full-scale war with the federal government. Zuckerberg knows the blowback is coming. I can't see how twitter doesn't become a life long target of the Trump administration to make an example of. If Facebook doesn't want to get caught in the splash zone they might want to back away from this one.

ForHackernews 6y ago
> Twitter just effectively started a full-scale war with the federal government. This is kind of true, but also points to just how insane this historical moment is. Can you imagine any prior administration acting this way? Can you imagine Bill Clinton raging out about AOL, or GW Bush trying to sic the FCC on Yahoo because it sent his email to spam?
- derwiki 6y ago
  Someone should point out to Trump that Google is classifying his emails as spam. It’s true, because I signed up for his newsletter and mark it spam.
  - lowdose 6y ago
    Brilliant
- CapricornNoble 6y ago
  >>>Can you imagine any prior administration acting this way? I wasn't alive for them, but I wouldn't be surprised if Truman or Eisenhower would crush Twitter in the age of McCarthyism. Although they tended to focus on individuals rather than companies or organizations. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McCarthyism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McCarthyism
  - lacker 6y ago
    Yep. Truman called the press “paid prostitutes of the mind”.

knodi 6y ago

At this point. If Trump can violet TOS and get away with it. Why can’t I or a bot. Side need to chosen and battle needs to be fought. It’s a lose lose for the likes of Twitter but at least Twitter is doing the right thing now.

aeternum 6y ago
The Twitter TOS are pretty ridiculous if you read through them. For example you cannot celebrate, praise, or condone murders or mass shootings committed by civilians. However you can celebrate, praise, and condone murders and mass shootings all you'd like if they were committed by governments.
- lern_too_spel 6y ago
  From Twitter's Glorification of Violence Policy: "Exceptions may be made for violent acts by state actors, where violence was not primarily targeting protected groups." "Exceptions may be made" doesn't sound like "you can [do it] all you'd like."
  - aeternum 6y ago
    Right, but this is another problem which is at the crux of the issue. These exceptions throughout the TOS give Twitter the power to editorialize without requiring them to take on any liability for the content on their site.

throwawaysea 6y ago

Whenever I see articles like this, my BS radar detector goes off. These articles make it seem like huge numbers of employees are up in arms and ready to quit, but really it is almost always a loud vocal minority looking to impose their personal worldview on the company. The only conditions under which a company should react to activist input is if they have done a company wide anonymous poll (and probably of their customer base as well). Otherwise, they will just hear from those who are committed to the cause (radicals/zealots) or have psychological safety to voice their views. Given that big tech companies are mostly SF-based and secondarily Seattle-based, those internal cultures reflect only one perspective (the far-left progressive). Just remember, those far-left progressives make up just 8% of the population (https://hiddentribes.us/profiles https://hiddentribes.us/profiles). There are almost certainly moderate and conservative employees that back Zuckerberg's position as well.

syockit 6y ago
But when you sample only Silicon Valley companies including Facebook, the percentage is much higher than 8%.

sjg007 6y ago

As they should. All it takes for evil is for good people to do nothing. FB and Twitter have been weaponized. This reduces the value of their platforms. What do you do when a bully is the most powerful person in the world? Well you stand up to them as a community. Take away his microphone.

kren 6y ago

I don't even believe Trump was glorifying violence, but calling him out as if he did sure could rally the people who are actually starting the violence against innocent businesses and civilians. Too bad Twitter doesn't have to govern themselves. Trump's tweet showed he was concerned, not glorifying. If he wanted to glorify it, he would probably say something more along the lines of "Get in line or we will use our GREAT guns and military and open fire on you thugs." He also wouldn't need riots as an excuse to tweet about such things. Zuckerberg is supporting freedom of speech when his company didn't have to choose to. He is correct that censoring only worsens the problem and it removes opportunities to improve the situation. If Trump were censored, people would not know him or what he is doing as well as they do now. Amidst all the risk to MZ's company and the violence happening around us, his decision is highly courageous and respectable as he is serving the American people and their rights, even though he said himself that he doesn't like what Trump said.

kren 6y ago
Besides, even if he were censored, people would see it and repost screenshots anyway

ribble 6y ago

oh noes! lactating soibois gonna throw a hissy!

gentleman11 6y ago

I’m going to be the guy in this thread who says that censorship is scary. Bots need to be stopped, and politically inflammatory fake news needs to be flagged and corrected... but we don’t get to say what we want unless people we hate/fear also get to say what they want.