Published 08:58 IST, June 2nd 2020
Facebook employees stage virtual walkout over inaction regrading Trump's posts
Facebook employees walked away from their work-from-home desks on June 1 following Facebook's inaction to Trump posts that are 'inciting violence'.
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Facebook employees have decided to stage a virtual walk-out wherein they walked away from their work-from-home desks on June 1. According to reports, many disgruntled Facebook employees took to Twitter where they expressed deep sadness at Facebook’s inability to police US President Donald Trump and his recent posts that have been seen as inciting violence.
Facebook employees call out CEO
The staff at Facebook in a rare moment publicly called out Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg. As per reports, among those who took a stand against Mark were all seven engineers on the team that maintains the React code library that is used to support all of Facebook’s apps. A Facebook spokesperson, Andy Stone, has recently disclosed that employees that will be taking time off to participate in the protests will not have their time off removed from their vacation days.
Mark is wrong, and I will endeavor in the loudest possible way to change his mind.
— Ryan Freitas (@ryanchris) June 1, 2020
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.
— Stirman (@stirman) May 30, 2020
I work at Facebook and I am not proud of how we’re showing up. The majority of coworkers I’ve spoken to feel the same way. We are making our voice heard.
— Jason Toff (@jasontoff) June 1, 2020
Tech giants take a public stand
Facebook Inc (FB.O) and Snapchat developer Snap Inc (SNAP.N) have decided to follow companies like Intel Corp (INTC.O), Netflix Inc (NFLX.O), Alphabet’s (GOOGL.O) Google, International Business Machines Corp (IBM.N) and Nike Inc (NKE.N) in their condemnation of racial inequality in the United States.
Facebook and Snapchat are the most recent companies to take a public stance against the discrimination faced by African-Americans. While these companies have now chosen to take a stance, tech companies like Facebook and Google in the past have themselves struggled with the notion of equality and the proportion of black engineers in the workplace remains much lower in regards to the US population.
According to reports, employees at Facebook on June 1 urged CEO Mark Zuckerberg to take stricter action against divisive posts by US President Donald Trump, but Zuckerberg has already made his and his organisation's stance clear in claims that Facebook will no take action against Donald Trump for his posts and instead has vowed to commit $10 million towards NGO’s and organizations that work towards racial equality.
The death of George Floyd, an unarmed Africa-American who died in police custody in Minnesota, has renewed the outrage against the treatment of African-Americans in the United States.
08:58 IST, June 2nd 2020