Employees Hold Virtual Walkout to Protest Facebook Inaction on Trump Posts 'Advocating Violence Against Black Demonstrators'

Employees at Facebook--many of whom are continuing to work from home because of the coronavirus pandemic--organized a virtual walkout on Monday to pressure the social media giant to apply a tougher standard to President Donald Trump's posts, particularly those about recent and ongoing nationwide demonstrations provoked by the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

The Facebook walkout, which involved employees taking the day off in support of the protests over police brutality and Floyd's death, came after the company decided on Friday not to take action on a post in which Trump threatened to send the National Guard to Minneapolis to fire on demonstrators, which the ACLU said amounted to a call to "literally murder protesters."

Facebook's inaction on the post contrasted with the approach of Twitter, which hid the comment behind a notice that read: "This tweet violated the Twitter Rules about glorifying violence. However, Twitter has determined that it may be in the public's interest for the tweet to remain accessible."

The notice came after Twitter added fact-check labels to two earlier tweets from Trump, which prompted the president to retaliate on Thursday with an executive order that critics decried as an unconstitutional "ploy for [Trump] to dominate and eviscerate public oversight of his lies."

According to the New York Times, which reported on the Facebook walkout Monday:

"The hateful rhetoric advocating violence against black demonstrators by the U.S. president does not warrant defense under the guise of freedom of expression," one Facebook employee wrote in an internal message board, according to a copy of the text viewed by the New York Times.

The employee added: "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."

The Guardiancompiled a collection of tweets from Facebook employees before and during the Monday walkout that pushed back against Zuckerberg's lengthy justification for not taking any action on Trump's posts.

"I don't know what to do, but I know doing nothing is not acceptable," Jason Stirman, a member of Facebook's R&D team, tweeted Saturday night. "I'm a FB employee that completely disagrees with Mark's decision to do nothing about Trump's recent posts, which clearly incite violence. I'm not alone inside of FB. There isn't a neutral position on racism."

Ryan Freitas, director of product design for Facebook's News Feed, declared Sunday that "Mark is wrong, and I will endeavor in the loudest possible way to change his mind."

Andrew Crow, head of design for Facebook Portal, wrote Monday:

Andrew Clark of Facebook's React, an open-source JavaScript library, posted a joint statement in support of the walkout:

The walkout was welcomed on social media by journalists and political commentators:

According to the Times, Zuckerberg moved up his Thursday meeting with employees to Tuesday to enable Facebook workers to question the executive about his decisions regarding Trump's recent posts.

Facebook spokesperson Liz Bourgeois told the newspaper Monday that the company "recognize[s] the pain many of our people are feeling right now, especially our black community" and "encourage[s] employees to speak openly when they disagree with leadership."

This is not the first time during the Trump administration that Facebook employees have challenged Zuckerberg's decisions related to Trump. In October 2019, hundreds of employees signed on to an open letter opposing the platform's policy of exempting political advertising from its "misinformation" standards under the guise of promoting free speech.