Following the murder of George Floyd, an unarmed black man, by a police officer, protests that were initially peaceful turned violent in many large cities in the U.S..
Tear gas, rubber bullets, flash bangs and other measures have been thrown and fired by the authorities, but violent protests continue.
In response, President President Donald Trump said that if governors cannot sufficiently deploy forces to "dominate the streets" to end "lawlessness", he would deploy the US military to open fire if the situation cannot be brought under control.
Twitter hid the tweets, citing that it “glorified violence.”
But competitor Facebook, has another thing in mind. The company decided to not block whatever Trump is saying.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said that he "felt disgust" after President Donald Trump's controversial comments about George Floyd's death and ensuing protests. But still, Facebook is said to not be in the business what politicians say in the contest of political debate.
This is because Facebook won’t fact-check politicians.
""Personally, I have a visceral negative reaction to this kind of divisive and inflammatory rhetoric ... I know many people are upset that we've left the President's posts up, but our position is that we should enable as much expression as possible...," said Zuckerberg.
Zuckerberg's decision drew severe criticism from many users of the web, including from his own employees.
To express their displeased feelings about their employer's decision, many are protesting against the company’s decision on its internal forum. They also flocked to Twitter as well.
I work at Facebook and I am not proud of how we’re showing up. The majority of coworkers I’ve spoken to feel the same way. We are making our voice heard.
— Jason Toff (@jasontoff) June 1, 2020
I don't know what to do, but I know doing nothing is not acceptable. 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.
— Stirman (@stirman) May 30, 2020
Disappointed that, again, I need to call this out: Trump's glorification of violence on Facebook is disgusting and it should absolutely be flagged or removed from our platforms. I categorically disagree with any policy that does otherwise.
— Brandon Dail (@aweary) May 29, 2020
Internally we are voicing our concerns, so far to no avail. I personally will continue to bring it up until something has is changed. https://t.co/JE8SYttOM1
— Sara Zhang (@superrrsara) May 29, 2020
Zuckerberg’s comments come at a time when executives from major tech companies such as Apple, Google, Twitter, and Spotify are issuing statement in support of the Black community.
In a later post, Zuckerberg wrote on Facebook in solidarity with the Black community, and said that the company is donating $10 million to groups working on racial justice.
However, he didn't say anything about Trump’s posts.