Hundreds of Facebook employees on Monday staged a “virtual walkout” in protest of the company’s policies regarding recent posts by President Donald Trump.
Employees took to Twitter to publicly announce their participation in the protest, referring to the virtual walkout with #TakeAction. These employees expressed disappointment and shame in the decision by Facebook’s leaders to leave up a Thursday post from Trump in which the president said that “when the looting starts, the shooting starts.”
As many as 600 employees partook in the virtual protest, estimated one employee who spoke with CNBC. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg plans to hold a town hall with employees on Tuesday to address the situation, the employee said. This person asked not to be named discussing internal matters with press.
The employees said that they believed this type of post violates Facebook’s platform standards. The company’s policies state that Facebook will “remove language that incites or facilitates serious violence.” Asked if Facebook’s leadership will have a meeting to reconsider its decision per the request of the employees partaking in the virtual walkout, a Facebook spokesman told CNBC that the company has “No comment on this.”
Trump posted his controversial statement on both Facebook and Twitter. Unlike Facebook, Twitter placed a label warning users about the president’s violent rhetoric, which they have to dismiss before they can view his tweet. Twitter is also preventing users from liking or retweeting the tweet.
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