As protests swept the nation over the weekend, several Facebook employees and executives took the unusual step of chastising chief executive Mark Zuckerberg for his hands-off approach to President Trump’s post about the demonstrators — and did so on rival site Twitter.
Twitter made the unprecedented decision last week to flag the president’s tweet as inflammatory. That triggered a major internal debate on Facebook’s group messaging boards, as many called on Zuckerberg to follow in Twitter’s footsteps.
Trump wrote, “when the looting starts, shooting starts” after protests erupted last week in Minneapolis after George Floyd, a black man, died in police custody. Massive and often violent demonstrations have followed, spreading to cities across the country. On Friday, Zuckerberg defended the decision to take no action against the post, writing that “people need to know if the government is planning to deploy force.”
