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Why @Facebook's "Liberal" employees should go on STRIKE or quit, now over their bosses complete failure to "keep people safe and prevent harm"--- a thread:
If a mainstream news station allowed Nazis to broadcast public recruitment meetings every day to millions of people would you watch that station? Would you work for them? Would you hold the camera?
Because that is what the “liberal” employees of @Facebook are doing.
Because that is what the “liberal” employees of @Facebook are doing.
In May, a new study found that White Supremacist groups were “thriving” on Facebook, exploiting fears and resentments around COVID-19 to grow their memberships. When Nazis with torches marched in Charlottesville and killed Heather Heyer in 2017, it was a Facebook event first.
Since then, @Facebook has given many assurances but taken little action to quell the spread of violent white supremacist ideology & conspiracy theories on its platform, which is why organizations like @ColorOfChange ran a campaign this summer urging businesses to boycott ad-buys.
And just this week, Kenosha “militia” groups that had already been reported hundreds of times for violating Facebook’s policies encouraged members to go to Black Lives Matter protests to attack protesters with assault weapons.
Soon after, a 17 year old white supremacist shot and killed two protesters and injured another. The next day, Facebook took down the “Call to Arms” event-- after it had already been reported hundreds of times.
Of course, @Facebook also continues to profit off racist, anti-democratic and false Trump campaign ads; Although the company has started taking down some ads like one that used blatant Nazi imagery, even when they are removed, it is usually only after they have spread widely.
Meanwhile, while California burns and superstorms pummel the Gulf Coast, climate denial runs rampant on Facebook because executives refuse to take measures to reign it in.
Climate denial on Facebook is so egregious that a scientifically false article suggesting Earth’s solar orbit was responsible for climate change went viral last year, racking up 4.2 million views on social media.
After another climate denying post drew attention to Facebook’s policy of not fact-checking opinion pieces, @Facebook had the gall to insist that in 2020, a year of record breaking climate disasters, climate change does “not pose an immediate threat to human health and safety.”
And then there is #COVID-19. In April, researchers found that websites spreading misinformation about Coronavirus attracted nearly half a billion views on Facebook.
An article that “falsely claimed that the American Medical Association was encouraging doctors and hospitals to overestimate deaths from Covid-19, was seen 160 million times in April alone.”
And just this month, an investigation found that 84% of medical misinformation remained on @Facebook without a warning label despite Facebook’s supposed commitment to countering anti-science propaganda about COVID-19.
Add all this up, and it's clear that @Facebook is killing people. And if the company doesn’t take action now to eradicate white supremacy, anti-science propaganda and misinformation about voting from its pages, many more people will die.
Facebook is known for having a millennial, progressive workforce based mostly in California and the East Coast. Their “campuses” offer vegan food on demand, eco-friendly plateware, lactation rooms for new mothers, game rooms and fair trade coffee.
If you look at their website, you’ll find commitments to “diversity” and inclusion, as well as a commitment to “keeping people safe” and “preventing harm.” 77% of political donations made by @Facebook employees this year were to Democrats, w/ Bernie Sanders enjoying high support.
That’s a whole lot of liberals whose paychecks are funded in part by the dissemination of violent white supremacy, science denial and lies.
So the question is, particularly for high level employees with power and privilege: Whose side are you on?
So the question is, particularly for high level employees with power and privilege: Whose side are you on?
This question will make people uncomfortable. Good.
We should all be uncomfortable.
We should all be uncomfortable.
I wrote this as the entire West of America is engulfed in flames, two hurricanes devastated the Gulf coast, white supremacists are recruiting new foot-soldiers to arm themselves and attack Black Lives Matter protesters, police continue to shoot Black people with impunity...
and Donald Trump is stealing an election before our very eyes, aided and abetted in particular by Facebook.
If you have any power over the choices a company makes, now, more than ever you must use that power to, as Facebook says, “keep people safe and prevent harm.”
If you have any power over the choices a company makes, now, more than ever you must use that power to, as Facebook says, “keep people safe and prevent harm.”
My intent is not to shame people for working for @Facebook. We’re all part of broken, oppressive systems. But Facebook’s employees are uniquely powerful in both their professed liberalism and their proximity to Trump and the White Supremacist’s right primary megaphone.
Small groups of Facebook employees have already written public letters to Mark Zuckerberg calling for stronger policies around Trump posts and some have even quit in protest.
And others within Facebook began sounding the alarm this year by “walking out” of a virtual meeting after Facebook refused to take down Trump’s dangerous response to the George Floyd protests. These efforts, alongside media attention and congressional hearings,
...have already yielded limited results, like when earlier this week Facebook took down a post with misleading information about voting. But waiting to remove incendiary ads or posts until there is public uproar or until after someone is killed, is not good enough.
Now it’s time to escalate. @Facebook employees should take a page out of the WNBA and NBA’s book and refuse to work--- but stick with it. Picket Zuckerberg’s house. Quit. Or better yet, unionize and strike.
Experts in authoritarianism warn that even if Trump does lose the election (despite his blatant attempts to sabotage) he will use his platform to incite his followers to violence, similar to what we saw in Kenosha and Portland. That platform is largely on @Facebook & Twitter.
Ultimately, we need rigorous government regulation to cleanse social media platforms of hate and anti-science propaganda. But right now we don’t have a government.
If we are going to survive the next few months and keep our Democracy at all intact, while keeping as many people alive as possible during a deadly pandemic, Facebook employees will need to ask themselves: Whose side am I on?
Make a decision, and do something. Before it’s too late.
I wrote this as an op-ed, but couldn't find a home for it & it feels very timely and urgent. If you want to see it w/ sources linked: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1wBQuI_k5DWSB9TjDVm8raGayBGW8lRC63ljkW28KDSI/edit?usp=sharing
Feel free to copy and paste and put on your facebook pages! I deleted my account, but don't object to this being shared 
Also posted here because why not I'm using my small platform and so should they: https://www.beaclimateactivist.org/post/why-facebook-employees-should-go-on-strike-to-save-us-all
This pretty much sums it up. Facebook is THE alternate, evil reality trump world lives in. If they don’t shut it down, we don’t stand a chance. https://twitter.com/kevinroose/status/1300139878651367425
Ps I’m about to go on strike to keep people safe and prevent harm. If I can do it so can they.
