Faced with the bronca of some of his employees, Mark Zuckerberg continues to defend his decision not to moderate polemic messages from Donald Trump last week on his Facebook platform.
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Unlike Twitter, the thumbs up platform decided not to report a message from the President - " The lootings will be immediately greeted by bullets " - about the demonstrations denouncing the death of George Floyd, which were enamelled riots. The death of this African-American, asphyxiated by a white police officer in Minneapolis, arouses a wave of indignation in the United States.
Several employees expressed their dissatisfaction with their boss this weekend and participated in an online strike on Monday. They believe that even if Facebook has decided not to exercise the slightest censorship on comments made by politicians, those of the tenant of the White House in this case exceed the limits - those of incitement to violence.
Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of the platform, answered their questions at a weekly videoconference meeting on Tuesday, without changing his mind. According to the New York Times , he told them that he had spoken to Donald Trump after his decision, and told him that he found the rhetoric of his Friday post " dangerous and inflammatory ."
But he argued that the messages should not be deleted, in the name of freedom of expression and the public's interest in learning. The decision, which some employees disagreed with, was " difficult " when it came to a message whose content personally shocked him, Zuckerberg told some 25,000 employees who had logged on, according to the report. Recode site that got a recording of the call. " I knew the stakes were very high, and that many people would be upset if we decided not to do so, " said the platform's CEO, quoted by Recode.
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But, according to Bloomberg, he also said during this tense exchange that Facebook was examining the possibility of modifying its moderation policy on such content, and of reporting it rather than deleting it altogether. A Facebook spokesperson told the New York Times that Zuckerberg was " grateful " to the employees for initiating the debate.
