Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

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.


Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (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]

    Starting Score:    1  point
    Moderation   +2  
       Insightful=1, Interesting=1, Total=2
    Extra 'Interesting' Modifier   0  
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   4  
  • (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.