indica News Bureau-
As many CEOs of big techs have been standing in support of Black Lives Matter and encouraging equality and keeping a check on hateful speeches.
But Mark Zuckerberg seems to be in a pickle, as hundreds of his senior staff have staged a ‘virtual walkout’ in protest over the way he has handled Donald Trump’s inflammatory language.
Zuckerberg appeared to back Trump when the President criticized Twitter over for censoring his statements over the recent death of George Floyd.
Dozens of staff abandoned their work-from-home desks, while others took to Twitter to criticize Zuckerberg’s decision to leave Trump’s most inflammatory posts unchallenged – even as the rival medium has sparked his anger by labeling it.
The protest on Monday was a rare case of staff publicly taking their CEO to task, with one employee tweeting that thousands were involved.
In a joint statement published on Twitter, they added, “We implore the Facebook leadership to #TakeAction.”
Ryan Freitas, a director of product design for Facebook’s News Feed tweeted, “Mark is wrong, and I will endeavor in the loudest possible way to change his mind.” He added he had mobilized “50+ like-minded folks” to lobby for internal change.
On Friday, Twitter added a warning label to a Trump tweet that included the phrase “when the looting starts, the shooting starts”. Twitter said the tweet violated rules against glorifying violence but was left up as a public interest exception.
Facebook declined to do anything about the same message. He appeared on Fox News to criticize Twitter’s decision possibly as a way to try and avoid President Trump signing an executive order that would have serious consequences for Facebook.
In a Facebook post last Friday, he said he found Mr. Trump’s remarks “deeply offensive”, but they did not violate company policy against incitements to violence and people should know whether the government was planning to deploy force.
On Sunday, he warmed up a little more, saying, “We stand with the Black community – and all those working towards justice in honor of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery and far too many others whose names will not be forgotten.”
He said the social network would commit $US10 million to organizations that are working on racial justice.
