Social-Media
On Trump's shooting posts in Minnesota Facebook will take no action
CEO Mark Zuckerberg stated on Friday that Facebook will not delete or take any other action on a President Trump post that was removed for the "glorification of violence." "I know many people feel upset that we have dropped out of the posts of the President, but our position is that, without a risk of specific dangers in clear policies, we should make as much expression as possible," Zuckerberg said.
"When the post discussing the protests in Minnesota," said Zuckerberg, "Facebook has looked very closely, evaluating whether our policies have violated them."
The company finally decided to leave it because the references to the national guard meant that we read it as a warning about government action and we think that people need to be aware of whether the government plans to use force. Our incitement policy allows debate about the use of state force, although I believe today's situation raises important questions about the potential limits of this discussion.."
Zuckerberg noted that Trump made his comments "when he said that the original post warned of the chance that plunder could lead to violence." He wrote in the following tweet.
We have chosen to ensure that this post, which explicitly dissuades violence, does not violate our policies and is important to people.'
Zuckerberg commented on whether to act against Trump tweets that had been posted on Facebook after a day of sometimes agonising debate in the company. This week, Twitter chose the added context of a connection to two Trump mail fraud tweets to hide the other behind the interstitial warning for "great violence" by stating that they had not violated company policies. Facebook chose not to add a link to Trump's mail fraud tweets.
Yet Facebook did not comment by Friday on its intention to take action against Trump's tweet about Minneapolis, including the slogan: "when the looting commences the shooting begins." Some people who asked the company to intervene in the company's in-house chat tool Workplace posts were shocked.
"I have to say I find the distortions which we have to go through unbelievably difficult to stomach," a worker wrote about the shooting post in a comment. "All of this points to a high risk of violent escalation and civil unrest in November and history won't judge us kindly if we do not pass the test case here."
Zuckerberg has no guidelines for placing warning signs before posts that could cause violence and simply remove them. Facebook was different than Twitter. "We believe it should be removed, whether or not the article incites violence, even if it comes from a politician," he says. "This is a matter of concern. "Today we were also in contact with the White House to clarify these policies."
He concluded: "These decisions are difficult and, just as they are today, I often find the content that we leave deeply offensive. We are trying to reflect on all the consequences and are continuously reviewing our policies, because the situation is always evolving.
People can agree or disagree about where the line should be drawn, but I hope they understand our overall philosophy of opening this debate, especially if there are such high stakes. I strongly disagree with how the president talked about this but I think it ought to be seen by individuals as accountability for those in positions of power can ultimately only occur when their discourse is examined openly.
