An Ugly Truth: Inside Facebook's Battle for Domination [calibre 4.99.5]

Over the past year, Twitter had been gradually diverging from Facebook on speech policies. It had banned political ads soon after Zuckerberg’s Georgetown declaration to protect all political speech, and it had begun to label tweets in which Trump spread false or misleading information around the elections; earlier in the week, Twitter had attached a fact-checking label to two tweets by the president that discredited the integrity of mail-in voting. But the warning labels on the Black Lives Matter demonstrations tweets marked a shift: it was not a question of correcting a falsehood, but of calling out the potential danger of Trump’s words. Twitter was clearly stating that it was aware that the president was using its platform to spread an idea or message that could lead to real-world harm.

The move by Twitter put more pressure on leaders at Facebook to take a stand against the president’s dangerous rhetoric. The usual suspects met, once again, to discuss their options regarding Trump’s account. The policy team, including Kaplan, reprised the argument used to defend Trump’s bleach comments: there was no clear directive; Trump had not actually ordered anyone to open fire on protesters. The team sent its decision to Zuckerberg and told the White House that it was reviewing Trump’s post and weighing options.

Later that day, Trump called Zuckerberg. The president wanted to plead his case and ensure that his Facebook account was safe. Zuckerberg explained that he was concerned about the divisive and inflammatory nature of the post. He told the president he was disappointed with his use of the “looting” and “shooting” rhetoric. “Zuckerberg mainly listened while Trump did his usual talking in circles,” recalled one Facebook employee briefed on the conversation. “I wouldn’t say Trump apologized for the post. He did the bare minimum so that Facebook wouldn’t remove it.” Zuckerberg attempted to frame a discussion around responsibility and the power of Trump’s audience on Facebook, reminding the president that he had a personal responsibility to use his massive reach on the platform responsibly. But he also made it clear that he would not be removing the post or taking action against Trump’s account.

What had begun as one-off decisions had matured into a policy that made politicians and public figures a special protected class on Facebook. Zuckerberg justified the position in a post on his Facebook page. He found Trump’s comments personally offensive, he wrote. “But I’m responsible for reacting not just in my personal capacity but as the leader of an institution committed to free expression.”

Zuckerberg’s post was shared widely within the company, along with a clip from a Fox News interview earlier in the month in which he seemed to criticize Twitter’s approach to Trump. “We have a different policy I think, than Twitter on this,” Zuckerberg had said. “I just believe strongly that Facebook shouldn’t be the arbiter of the truth of everything that people say online.”2

The contrast between the two companies was demoralizing to Facebook employees. On their Tribe boards, employees asked if there were job openings at Twitter. One engineer went a step farther, asking if there was a job at “any company which showed they were willing to take a stance on their moral responsibility in the world—because Facebook doesn’t seem to be it.” Another employee posted an internal poll asking his fellow Facebook employees if they agreed with Zuckerberg’s decision. More than a thousand people responded that the company had made the wrong call.

That Monday, hundreds of employees staged a virtual walkout and changed their Workplace avatars to a black-and-white fist. Some also took the unprecedented step of posting public messages on their social media accounts and out-of-office email notices, criticizing Facebook directly for its decision. “The hateful rhetoric advocating violence against Black demonstrators by the U.S. President does not warrant defense under the guise of freedom of expression,” Robert Traynham, a senior Black employee and director of policy communications, wrote on the Tribe group for Black@Facebook. “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.” Traynham’s post built on years of frustration among Black employees, many of whom no longer trusted their employer enough to use the Black@Facebook Tribe board to air grievances about the company. They had taken to meeting in person or discussing problems through encrypted apps; now they banded together in support of the walkout and the pressure it would put on Facebook executives. “For years, the company had been trying to appease us with claims that they were working on diversity and were committed to racial justice. All of that means nothing when Mark is willing to give the president of the United States a free pass to target black people on Facebook,” wrote another member of the Black@Facebook group. “Stop letting people be racist on Facebook, maybe then we will believe that you support racial justice.”