Facebook Workers Stage 'Virtual Walkout' To Protest Inaction On Trump Posts
Facebook employees staged a “virtual walkout” Monday in protest of the social media company’s failure to address President Donald Trump’s use of its platform to spread incendiary content.
It’s unclear how many of the company’s 48,000 global employees are participating in the walkout by taking the day off. Many of Facebook’s employees were already working from home due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
A number of the virtual protesters said they planned to use their time to attend the physical demonstrations against police brutality around the country.
i'm taking PTO from @instagram by @facebook today for #BlackLivesMatter. i'm deeply disappointed & ashamed in how the company is showing up the world rn. fb fam - if u feel similarly, join me & let's organize. put your ~$~zuck bucks~$ where ur tweets are. support Black-led orgs!! pic.twitter.com/TXnD5qPNer
— #BLACKLIVESMATTER 🖤 (@ktzhu) June 1, 2020
In a statement to HuffPost, the company acknowledged that some of its employees were indeed engaged in the protest and encouraged them to voice their dissent.
“We recognise the pain many of our people are feeling right now, especially our Black community,” a Facebook spokesperson said in an emailed statement. “We encourage employees to speak openly when they disagree with leadership. As we face additional difficult decisions around content ahead, we’ll continue seeking their honest feedback.”
Today I am participating in a virtual walkout over Facebook’s recent decisions not to moderate posts that we believe violate our platform standards.
— Margo Very Stern (@wordstern) June 1, 2020
As protests rocked the country following the death of George Floyd, a Black man, at the hands of police in Minneapolis, Trump published a series of inflammatory messages on his social media pages, including one stating that “looting” would lead to “shooting.” The phrase was a clear reference to the words of Walter Headley Jr, a Miami police chief who greeted the...
