Facebook has been heavily criticised for the lack of action against President Trump’s posts, which have been claimed as provoking violence.
On Monday, 1st June, Facebook employees requested the day off as a digital protest against their company’s lack of response. Employees have also spoken out about their disappointment on social media.
In his post, President Trump stated “any difficulty and we will assume control but, when the looting starts, the shooting starts”. Twitter classified the post as “glorifying violence” and consequently hid the tweet on their platform with a warning. Trump responded to this by threatening to close social media platforms.
Mark Zuckerberg responded to Twitter’s decision: “we do not have a policy of putting a warning in front of posts that may incite violence because we believe that if a post incites violence, it should be removed regardless of whether it is newsworthy, even if it comes from a politician”. Which seems quite contradictory to the lack of action taken.
Talkspace was a partner of Facebook, providing online therapy to the team. The relationship has now been discontinued specifically due to Facebook’s response to Trump’s posts. Oren Frank, Co-Founder & CEO of Talkspace, posted on Twitter “We will not support a platform that incites violence, racism, and lies”.
Mark Zuckerberg claimed that leaving the post up was to “enable as much expression as possible”, but this has resulted in outraging employees, partners and users. Perhaps it is time for all social media platforms to assess what is being posted more stringently.