Facebook employees face Donald Trump support Twitter

Text by: Myriam Berber

New twist in the battle between President Donald Trump and the social network Twitter. Employees of its competitor, Facebook, took the side of Twitter, unlike their boss. They disavow the decision of Mark Zuckerberg who refuses to intervene on the messages of Donald Trump.

Publicity

"  Mark is wrong and I will try to make him change his mind by making a lot of noise  ", tweeted, Sunday May 31, 2020, Ryan Freitas, design director of Facebook.

I apologize if you were waiting for me to have some sort of external opinion. I focused on organizing 50+ likeminded folks into something that looks like internal change.

He said that he had gathered around fifty people of the same opinion. Among these employees, a designer, David Gillis: "  I think that Trump's looting tweet encourages violence and fuels racism. Respect to the Twitter team  ”. And research and development manager Jason Stirman: “  I'm not alone at Facebook. There is no neutral position on racism  ”.

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.

At the origin of this movement of employees of Facebook, the decision, last week, of Twitter to report as misleading two messages from the president on the postal vote. Then, Twitter masked a tweet from Donald Trump that threatened to open fire on the protesters in Minneapolis, after the death of George Floyd.

Facebook's status quo

Unlike Twitter, Facebook refuses to delete Donald Trump's posts. The two networks have set up systems to combat dangerous content (hate speech, apology for violence, harassment, etc.) and against disinformation. But Facebook exempts politicians and political candidates from these measures.

Its boss Mark Zuckerberg reminded that "  platforms should not play the role of online truth arbiters ". To make matters worse, the American press revealed that Mark Zuckerberg and Donald Trump spoke by phone.

The controversy over political ads

Ulcerated by Twitter's decision, Donald Trump counterattacked. On May 28, 2020, he signed a decree calling into question a fundamental law of the American Internet, section 230 of the "  Communications Decency Act  ". This decree aims to modify the status of content hosts. From now on, they will be held responsible before the courts for the content circulating on their platforms.

This is not the first time that Facebook's position has attracted strong criticism in the United States. On the subject of political ads, Facebook also agreed with Donald Trump. While Twitter bans all political ads, Mark Zuckerberg has decided not to ban them on its pages, even if they are false. A position of the boss criticized internally by more than 250 employees of the group in a letter made public by the New York Times .

► Also read : Twitter reports a tweet from Trump, who cries out for interference in the presidential election

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