Facebook employees allegedly tried to delete Donald Trump's posts but Mark Zuckerberg said censorship was 'inappropriate'
Donald Trump has apparently provoked debate within Facebook's walls, with some of the social network's employees pushing for his updates to be removed on the grounds of "hate speech."
Facebook employees allegedly tried to delete Donald Trump's posts but Mark Zuckerberg said censorship was 'inappropriate'
Sources familiar with the matter told the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) that statements made by the Republican candidate around immigration were viewed by staff as violating the company's policy on the matter. Those reviewing the content argued for the comments to be removed, but according to the report Facebook's founder and chief Mark Zuckerberg said it would be inappropriate to censor Trump.
The WSJ said the decision prompted employees across the social giant to complain on Facebook's internal messaging service and in person to Zuckerberg and other senior members of staff. According to the sources, some staff who were charged with reviewing content on the platform threatened to quit, saying that the site was bending its rules for the former Apprentice star.
Facebook's position as a purveyor of news has come under intense scrutiny ahead of the 2016 US election. Earlier this year, the social behemoth faced allegations of bias after an article published in Gizmodo quoting former staff implied that it was suppressing right wing news from its Trending Topics section. Facebook denied the claims, instead saying that it would "continue to improve the feature" and update its news guidelines to make them clearer.
In August, however, Facebook confirmed that human editors would no longer play a role in picking the topics featured in that area of the site other than for verifying quality, which has led to a few mishaps including a fake story about Fox anchor Megyn Kelly finding its way on to the list, as well as a hoax 9/11 article.
In a statement provided to the WSJ a spokeswoman for the social network said its reviewers consider the context of a post when assessing whether to take it down. "That context can include the value of political discourse," she added. "Many people are voicing opinions about this particular content and it has become an important part of the conversation around who the next US president will be."
Meanwhile, a spokeswoman from Trump's campaign said: "We are not concerned about the liberal Clinton elites who are so intolerant of conservative ideas that they would seek to censor the Trump campaign’s enormously successful Facebook engagement."
Further controversy at Facebook was said to be bubbling behind the scenes last week after Zuckerberg defended Peter Theil's status as a Facebook board member after the billionaire Paypal co-founder donated $1.25m to Trump's campaign. A screenshot of the memo was published on Hacker News with the boss saying: "We can't create a culture that says it cares about diversity and then excludes almost half the country because they back a political candidate."
"There are many reasons a person might support Trump that do not involve racism, sexism, xenophobia, or accepting sexual assault."
Theil is a decisive figure in Silicon Valley circles, he has ties to startup incubator Y Combinator and helped bankrupt Gawker Media after contributing funding to Hulk Hogan’s successful high profile lawsuit against the publisher.