Facebook Aims To Silence Conservative Voices As Employees Share Disdain For Zuckerberg
Facebook is the largest social media platform, and it's also the most likely to root for Democrats.
According to a report from The Wall Street Journal, employees at the tech giant have purposely tried to silence voices on the right.
Or as the New York Post puts it, Facebook employees "have consistently pushed to suppress or de-platform right-wing outlets such as Breitbart, despite objections from managers trying to avoid political blowback."
Per the Post:
The internal debates — captured in message-board conversations reviewed by the publication — fuel new concerns that the platform is treating news outlets differently based on political slant.
Of special focus in the report was Breitbart, which employees have targeted to remove from the News Tab function, especially amid protests following George Floyd’s death by Minneapolis police last year.
After a staffer asked about removing Breitbart, a senior researcher responded, “I can also tell you that we saw drops in trust in CNN 2 years ago: would we take the same approach for them too?” he wrote.
Along with that, it appears a large segment of employees don't care for founder Mark Zuckerberg, as revealed in leaked emails posted by The Atlantic.
It seems Facebook employees are concerned that Zuckerberg's obsession with growth are overriding the company's ethics. Big shock there, huh?
Anyway, many employee emails express outrage about Zuckerberg and Facebook's unchecked ability to allow hate speech, the report showed.
"History will not judge us kindly," one staffer wrote on Jan. 6, the day of the capitol riots.
"We've been fueling this fire for a long time and we shouldn't be surprised it's now out of control," wrote another.
"The report is the latest in a series of bombshell revelations from whistleblowers about the social media colossus’ craving for profits over the needs of its users," the Post wrote.
Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal's scathing piece summarizes the suppression of conservative news outlets in the opening paragraph.
"In June 2020, when America was rocked by protests over the death of George Floyd at the hands of a Minneapolis police officer, a Facebook employee posted a message on the company’s racial-justice chat board: 'Get Breitbart out of News Tab,'" it read.