On Friday, USA Today reported that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg intervened after employees of the social media giant pushed to have posts by GOP nominee Donald Trump removed as “hate speech.” Some even threatened to quit.
According to USA Today:
Facebook employees pushed to remove some of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s Facebook posts — such as one proposing the ban of Muslims from entering the U.S. — from the service as hate speech that violated the giant social network’s policies, the Wall Street Journal reported Friday.
The decision not to remove the Trump posts was made by Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, the newspaper reported.
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Employees complained that Facebook was changing the rules for Trump and some who review content on Facebook threatened to quit.
“When we review reports of content that may violate our policies, we take context into consideration. That context can include the value of political discourse,” the company said in an emailed statement. “Many people are voicing opinions about this particular content and it has become an important part of the conversation around who the next U.S. president will be. For those reasons, we are carefully reviewing each report and surrounding context relating to this content on a case by case basis.”
As regular readers of this site probably know, we’ve been quite critical of Facebook for some of the actions moderators have taken — like banning a user over a 2012 Trump campaign button showing only the candidate’s face. According to Facebook, the picture violated their rules on nudity.
I’ve even co-authored a book about how the social media site enables militant Islamic jihad through its Orwellian enforcement system.
But Zuckerberg got it right this time, and we have no problem giving credit where it’s due.
Related:
- Facebook: Page opposing Sharia Law violates community standards, gets unpublished
- Review: ‘Banned: How Facebook Enables Militant Islamic Jihad’
- Facebook: 2012 Donald Trump campaign button violates rules against nudity
- Facebook’s Zuckerberg needs to do more than meet with conservatives to build trust
- CBS: Muslim claims Trump’s Words Will Move American-Muslims To Violence (Video)
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And if you’re as concerned about Facebook censorship as we are, go here and order this new book:
