Photo: Chriss Keane/Reuters. Twitter Spittle: me
When Donald Trump first took to Facebook, demanding that we “Ban all Muslims” from the United States, it struck a chord with Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg of Facebook. The two wanted to remove the post. That would have been the right thing to do, as anti-Muslim hate speech on Facebook increases hate crimes. However, a former advisor to George Bush, Joel Kaplan, has repeatedly pushed Facebook not to take any actions that would upset their conservative users. He stated that, because right-wing politicians and groups have power and numbers, and Facebook needs them for controversy and profit, they should ignore the hate speech.
So they did.
They let the Nazis post because it’s profitable.
We’ve seen where that can lead. We don’t even have to look back to the atrocities of World War 2. Facebook was a primary motivator in the slaughter and genocide of the Rohingya people in Myanmar, a fact Facebook has owned up to, but seemingly refused to do anything about. This is dangerous. Hate speech isn’t free speech, it’s inciting violence. But Facebook refuses to see it that way. They’ve repeatedly allowed people to post hateful and violent content because they were afraid that stopping it would lead to conservatives leaving the platform.
Now, after Twitter finally began fact checking tweets that could cause confusion about voting, having dramatic repercussions for our democracy, Facebook has once again taken a stand against decency. They will not fact check, they will not stop the spread of false information, and they will allow politicians to attack the very fabric of our democracy, voting, with lies and threats of violence. Because that’s what those attacking democracy want Facebook to do.
Facebook falls in line.
Their employees are tired of it.
In This Article:
Twitter vs. Facebook
For a long time, Twitter and Facebook had the same policies on hate speech. They allowed it. However, the more anonymous nature of Twitter lead to far more harassment on the platform. It became a place that people would avoid, just to never have to face the barrage of harassment if one of their tweets attracted attention. Twitter’s policies improved, making the platform slightly safer. Facebook’s, despite leading to genocide, has not made large improvements.
False/Misleading Posts
The drama over Trump’s tweets initially started with false information he gave about mail-in ballots. Trump’s claims were false and misleading, made to suggest that people shouldn’t be allowed to vote by mail. However, we know that this pandemic will make in-person voting difficult. Voting by mail may be the only safe way to vote. Therefore, Trump’s essentially trying to prevent people from voting with his comments. This is a violation of Twitter’s guidelines, and they marked the posts as misleading. While they would have suspended a normal user and deleted the post, Trump received special treatment because, as President of the United States, his tweets are “newsworthy.”
Facebook, however, allowed the false information to remain. It’s kind of their go-to response when it comes to lying politicians. This could actually hurt America’s democracy this fall. People may not realize what they have to do to vote, or distrust mail-in ballots. Trump could also use his platform to drum up support to restrict voting rights, which members of his party will support. They’ve shown they’ll support him on everything.
Facebook has stated that they don’t want to be an “arbiter of truth.” They don’t want to be the ones to declare statements as true or not. But Twitter doesn’t either. That’s why they use a number of external sources and their own users to generate warnings, not outright fact checks. This gives users more data from confirmed sources, allowing users to do their own fact checking.
Trump showed a clear preference towards Facebook, as they’re okay with false and misleading posts. Trump has continued to use Twitter primarily, though he publicly complains about it. Tweets are cross-posted to Facebook and Instagram, so what happens on Twitter makes its way to the other platforms. Even if Twitter takes the worst posts down, they’ll remain on Facebook’s platforms.
Violent Posts
The next time the problem came up when when Donald Trump retweeted a video showing a man state that “The only good Democrat is a dead Democrat.” This is, of course, during the protests that seem to turn into riots when they’re met with riot-like force from the police and unrelated provocateurs. The protests themselves are over a man who was murdered by a police officer while three other officers assisted. Trump also tweeted a quote from a white supremacist sheriff stating, “When the looting starts the shooting starts.” He claimed later it wasn’t a threat, but given his calls for military involvement in U.S. cities, it’s clearly a threat.
Threats of violence break both Twitter’s and Facebook’s rules. However, while Twitter warned users that the tweets could contain violent content and hid them (instead of deleting them, as they would have if anyone else shared them), Facebook allowed the posts to stay up.
Now you had Trump attacking Muslims, attacking the right to vote, and threatening to attack protesters and kill Democrats. Twitter wasn’t okay with any of it, and took at least small measures against the actions. Facebook, on the other hand, has not. No one but Trump is happy with Facebook over that.
Facebook vs Facebook
“I have to say I am finding the contortions we have to go through incredibly hard to stomach. All this points to a very high risk of a violent escalation and civil unrest in November and if we fail the test case here, history will not judge us kindly.”
– From a Facebook employee, commenting on Trump’s looting/shooting post
Facebook employees aren’t the Zuckerbot. They have normal human emotions that aren’t strictly defined by profits. They’re not happy about enabling violence across the globe and assisting in Trump’s take down of American democracy.
Looking into Facebook’s history, it’s not hard to see the concern employees would have. Facebook has been responsible for fueling violence all over the world. The employees working there may be everyone who’s okay with that happening in other places, but they couldn’t withstand that violence coming home.
“It’s been said previously that inciting violence would cause a post to be removed. I too would like to know why the goals shifted, and where they are now.”
– Another Facebook employee, asking for details. They did not receive an answer.
Facebook has also had internal issues that have drawn ire from its own employees. The company that projects negativity and supports it also suffers from it internally. It’s not surprising. Black and transgender employees have stated they’ve faced discrimination. That internal culture of toxicity means many people were cautious about coming forward. They have anyway, flooding Facebook’s internal social network, Workplace, with complaints about Facebook’s lack of action on these posts and transparency with their employees.
The “Walkout”
“… Giving a platform to incite violence and spread disinformation is unacceptable, regardless who you are or if it’s newsworthy. I disagree with Mark’s position and will work to make change happen.”
– Andrew Crow, Facebook’s head of design for Portal
Facebook employees staged a virtual walkout, as many of them are, of course, working from home. The employees stopped working for a day last week, taking the day off and leaving their out of the office messages that they were out in a show of protest.
I work at Facebook and I am not proud of how we’re showing up. The majority of coworkers I’ve spoken to feel the same way. We are making our voice heard.
— Jason Toff (@jasontoff) June 1, 2020
“Along with Black employees in the company, and all persons with a moral conscience, I am calling for Mark to immediately take down the President’s post advocating violence, murder and imminent threat against Black people.”
– An anonymous Facebook employee
With so many Facebook employees as well as Facebook users speaking out, Mark Zuckerberg finally responded. Unfortunately, the response left much to be desired.
Facebook’s Latest Response
You can read Mark Zuckerberg’s lengthy yet nebulous post here. He makes seven statements, but most are unclear, and he doesn’t commit to making any changes. In fact, there’s just one concrete change promised, that Facebook would create a “voter hub” for accurate voting information. The other points were stating that Facebook would “look into” or “consider” their positions on posts regarding state use of force, voter suppression, having different guidelines for “partially violating content,” transparency, their structure and setting precedent with decisions, and their options for supporting racial justice. Nothing was certain.
This is Facebook’s go-to method. They state they’ll look into their options, change little to nothing, and repeat the process after the next tragedy they help facilitate. At the current rate, we should have another incident before the end of the week.
Facebook’s image is tarnished. The public is catching on to the fact that Facebook will support violence if it means increasing controversy on the platform. Controversy drives views and engagement, which increases the data Facebook can collect as well as the time it can show you ads.
I’m a software engineer. I’ve been recruited by Facebook before. I’ve even toured their offices and found them incredibly impressive. Their cafeteria had some fantastic vegetarian and vegan options, and their gelato? Incredible. But no amount of healthy vegetarian meals or delicious gelato can match up to not working for a company that’s a net negative on the world. A few of my friends, those who worked there and left and those who were also recruited, agree. Facebook has become ridiculously evil for the sake of driving profits. It’s not worth selling your soul to work for Facebook. Facebook’s going to lose quality developers, but the company’s large enough that it can just throw money at the problem. Everyone has a price, but that can’t last forever.
Sources:
- Karissa Bell, Engadget, [2], [3]
- Megan Rose Dickey, Taylor Hatmaker, TechCrunch
- Casey Newton, The Verge
- Vivian Kane, The Mary Sue
- Chelsea Steiner, The Mary Sue