Disappointed Facebook staff protest CEO’s inaction, boycott work

The staff of Facebook expressed their disappointment in their CEO, by taking the day off work on June 1 and virtually walking away from their work desks at home. They accused Mark Zuckerberg, CEO, Facebook, of not challenging the provocative posts of US President Donald Trump.

Many employees have criticised Zuckerberg for ignoring Trump’s inflammatory posts, unlike Twitter, which flagged them. Some of the top managers of Facebook as well as seven engineers from the unit that maintains the React code library— that supports Facebook apps— joined the protest. According to an employee’s tweet, thousands of staff members seemed to have expressed their disappointment by joining the protest.

A joint statement by the employees on Twitter demanded that the leaders at Facebook take action. The employees pointed out that by ignoring such provocative posts the Company was failing to ensure the safety of the community.

Even the director of product design at Facebook openly declared that Zuckerberg was wrong in not taking any action, and that he would do everything possible to make him “change his mind”. He also revealed that he had managed to bring together over 50 people within the organisation, who would help him fight for internal change.

Facebook HR has permitted employees to take part in the protest by taking time off without any impact on their paid leaves.

Talkspace, the online therapy company, which was considering a collaboration with Facebook, has now dropped the idea. Talkspace’s CEO has made it clear that he had no intentions to partner with a platform that did not act against “violence, racism, and lies.”

Meanwhile, Facebook has said that it encourages its employees to speak up and express their opinions, even if it meant disagreeing with the leadership. The Company welcomed honest feedback and stated that it was aware of “the pain many of our people are feeling right now, especially our Black community.”