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posted by martyb on Tuesday June 30 2020, @04:46PM   Printer-friendly

Zuckerberg once wanted to sanction Trump. Then Facebook wrote rules that accommodated him.

Hours after President Trump’s incendiary post last month about sending the military to the Minnesota protests, Trump called Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg.

The post put the company in a difficult position, Zuckerberg told Trump, according to people familiar with the discussions. The same message was hidden by Twitter, the strongest action ever taken against a presidential post.

To Facebook’s executives in Washington, the post didn’t appear to violate its policies, which allows leaders to post about government use of force if the message is intended to warn the public — but it came right up to the line. The deputies had already contacted the White House earlier in the day with an urgent plea to tweak the language of the post or simply delete it, the people said.

Eventually, Trump posted again, saying his comments were supposed to be a warning after all. Zuckerberg then went online to explain his rationale for keeping the post up, noting that Trump’s subsequent explanation helped him make his decision.

[...] Zuckerberg talks frequently about making choices that stand the test of time, preserving the values of Facebook and subsidiaries WhatsApp and Instagram for all of its nearly 3 billion monthly users for many years into the future — even when those decisions are unpopular or controversial.

At one point, however, he wanted a different approach to Trump.

Before the 2016 election, the company largely saw its role in politics as courting political leaders to buy ads and broadcast their views, according to people familiar with the company’s thinking.

But that started to change in 2015, as Trump’s candidacy picked up speed. In December of that year, he posted a video in which he said he wanted to ban all Muslims from entering the United States. The video went viral on Facebook and was an early indication of the tone of his candidacy.

Outrage over the video led to a companywide town hall, in which employees decried the video as hate speech, in violation of the company’s policies. And in meetings about the issue, senior leaders and policy experts overwhelmingly said they felt that the video was hate speech, according to three former employees, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution. Zuckerberg expressed in meetings that he was personally disgusted by it and wanted it removed, the people said. Some of these details were previously reported.

At one of the meetings, Monika Bickert, Facebook’s vice president for policy, drafted a document to address the video and shared it with leaders including Zuckerberg’s top deputy COO Sheryl Sandberg and Vice President of Global Policy Joel Kaplan, the company’s most prominent Republican.

[...] Ultimately, Zuckerberg was talked out of his desire to remove the post in part by Kaplan, according to the people. Instead, the executives created an allowance that newsworthy political discourse would be taken into account when making decisions about whether posts violated community guidelines.

That allowance was not formally written into the policies, even though it informed ad hoc decision-making about political speech for the next several years, according to the people. When a formal newsworthiness policy was announced in October 2016, in a blog post by Kaplan, the company did not discuss Trump’s role in shaping it.


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  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by TheReaperD on Tuesday June 30 2020, @06:17PM (14 children)

    by TheReaperD (5556) on Tuesday June 30 2020, @06:17PM (#1014619)

    The shootings in CHAZ are being caused by criminal gangs fighting over the territory. It has nothing to do with the protests other than the police abandoned the local station (hence why the gangs want that territory). It's gang members doing the shooting and getting shot. Chicago has more gang violence due to MS13 trying to move into Mafia territory there (the Mafia famililies have had a peace agreement for about a decade). For the CHAZ territory, it's the mayor and governor's problem, not Trump's. The federal government has no business getting involved as the national guard for the state is under the governor's control, not the President's, and no one in their right mind wants the US Army operating for a police action within the US. Way, way too many bad presidents there. And for Trump supporters that think you want Trump to send in the Army, take a moment to think: Would you be OK with Obama or Hillary Clinton sending the US Army into your home town to enforce what they think is the law? (Because your opinion does not count when the Army is leveling guns at you.) I thought not.

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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 30 2020, @06:36PM (10 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 30 2020, @06:36PM (#1014632)

    >federal government has no business getting involved as the national guard for the state is under the governor's control, not the President's

    Mostly correct. But if the state government is violating citizen rights, not enforcing law, and ignoring court orders. Eventually it becomes a federal issue. It's happened before with Little Rock and the federalization of the Arkansas National Guard [wikipedia.org].

    Moreso, the Civil War can equally be attributed to the federal government stepping in to force the abolition issue and ensure state governments protect the rights of blacks.

    It really becomes a question of: When does the state governments conduct warrant intervention to ensure equal protection of constitutional rights?

    > CHAZ are being caused by criminal gangs

    And the state government is allowing criminal gangs to violate the rights of citizens and ignore the law. Even in the beginning the national government has been able to step in those extreme circumstances like the Whiskey Rebellion [wikipedia.org].

    • (Score: 4, Interesting) by DeathMonkey on Tuesday June 30 2020, @08:35PM (9 children)

      by DeathMonkey (1380) on Tuesday June 30 2020, @08:35PM (#1014686) Journal

      Good thing the feds have repeatedly held the the police are not actually obligated to protect you or enforce any laws...

      Police Have No Duty to Protect You, Federal Court Affirms Yet Again [mises.org]

      • (Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 30 2020, @09:02PM (8 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 30 2020, @09:02PM (#1014700)

        Isn't it funny the cops can just not enforce law and allow a politically motivated mob to attack businesses and people they don't like? The last time state and local governments were doing this the feds did intervene. The KKK and the government inaction toward mob racial terror is very reminiscent of today's mobs of social justice and antifa thugs.

        Obligation != unable. Those court rulings are protecting the government from liability. It is not deciding when the government has crossed a line in abusing citizens.

        • (Score: 4, Insightful) by DeathMonkey on Tuesday June 30 2020, @09:31PM (7 children)

          by DeathMonkey (1380) on Tuesday June 30 2020, @09:31PM (#1014712) Journal

          Maybe if these business owners get a taste of what the black folks have been dealing with forever something might actually change.

          • (Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 30 2020, @09:45PM (3 children)

            by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 30 2020, @09:45PM (#1014719)

            I never realized how racist Seattle was until CHAZ. You are right.

            Those business owners and citizens living in CHAZ deserve CHAZ and the government sanctioned mob violence that is now targeting the people there. The increased violence that killed a teenage boy the other day is a small price to pay to bring back segregation for racial justice.

            I wonder if the political party that drove Seattle to be so racist that caused this violence will lose their grip on power this November so that the black community can see the reform they need.

            • (Score: 1) by hemocyanin on Wednesday July 01 2020, @01:36AM (2 children)

              by hemocyanin (186) on Wednesday July 01 2020, @01:36AM (#1014828) Journal

              Sort of a troll but accurate on facts. CHAZ's community gardens were segregated. One of CHAZ demands was for segregated medical treatments for black and brown people by black and brown people.

              • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 01 2020, @02:51AM (1 child)

                by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 01 2020, @02:51AM (#1014852)

                CHAZ is an interesting social experiment, and you should note the complete lack of support from liberal users on SN. It isn't nearly as bad as Fox Newz pretends, but no one is hailing it as some sort of liberal success. Personally I think it is a stupid stunt along the lines of the conservatives who occupied government buildings. At least CHAZ has some ethical background as opposed to the greedy ranchers who didn't like paying a pittance for grazing their herds on public land.

                • (Score: 1) by hemocyanin on Wednesday July 01 2020, @03:03AM

                  by hemocyanin (186) on Wednesday July 01 2020, @03:03AM (#1014859) Journal

                  It's been four or five shootings in the last ten days, two dead, a rape, and numerous assaults let alone the property damage. As an experiment, it is definitely informative. With the last shooting, you have CHAZ security opening fire on a car before anything happens based on an assumption it was stolen. So basically, presume much and shoot first. CHAZ security is what the police look like in the darkest horror movies.

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 30 2020, @10:44PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 30 2020, @10:44PM (#1014751)

            Those ignorant white business owners (as you seem to exclude blacks from being business owners) are going to get order restored by way of the police, or leave for safer areas.

          • (Score: -1, Troll) by khallow on Tuesday June 30 2020, @11:38PM

            by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday June 30 2020, @11:38PM (#1014773) Journal
            Because black folks get their businesses looted and burned by mobs all the time, right? I guess I'm just not seeing the equivalence.
          • (Score: 2) by Captival on Wednesday July 01 2020, @02:32AM

            by Captival (6866) on Wednesday July 01 2020, @02:32AM (#1014843)

            Well over 100 shot in Chicago alone last week. They're already quite familiar to dealing out violence to people that don't deserve it. It just doesn't make the news most of the time because other Commies like you in the media like it that way.

  • (Score: 3, Touché) by epitaxial on Tuesday June 30 2020, @07:30PM (1 child)

    by epitaxial (3165) on Tuesday June 30 2020, @07:30PM (#1014659)

    Oh good I feel much better its only gang members shooting other gang members.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 30 2020, @08:24PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 30 2020, @08:24PM (#1014681)

      wooosh

  • (Score: 1) by hemocyanin on Thursday July 02 2020, @03:13AM

    by hemocyanin (186) on Thursday July 02 2020, @03:13AM (#1015260) Journal

    You can try to handwave this away, but the fact is that an anarchist collective attracted horrible people and in 10 days, two black teens died and 3 or 4 people were wounded by gunfire. And the shootings are just the things that make the news because to ignore them in favor of the "farmer's market" narrative, is still too far even for most of the legacy media.