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Facebook Employees Ask Mark Zuckerberg If They Should Try To Stop a Donald Trump Presidency (gizmodo.com) 387

An anonymous reader writes: Mark Zuckerberg didn't shy from condemning several of Trump's views at his company's developer conference earlier this week. Things are getting tenser now. Gizmodo's Michael Nunez is reporting about a political discussion inside Facebook wherein employees appear to be asking Zuckerberg whether the company should try to "help prevent President Trump in 2017." Every week, Facebook employees vote in an internal poll on what they want to ask Zuckerberg in an upcoming Q&A session. A question from the March 4 poll was: "What responsibility does Facebook have to help prevent President Trump in 2017?"An excerpt from the report which talks about Facebook's position :But what's exceedingly important about this question being raised -- and Zuckerberg's answer, if there is one -- is how Facebook now treats the powerful place it holds in the world. It's unprecedented. More than 1.04 billion people use Facebook. It's where we get our news, share our political views, and interact with politicians. It's also where those politicians are spending a greater share of their budgets. And Facebook has no legal responsibility to give an unfiltered view of what's happening on their network.
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Facebook Employees Ask Mark Zuckerberg If They Should Try To Stop a Donald Trump Presidency

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  • if facebook users don't know by now.....
  • Non-Issue (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Slider451 ( 514881 )

    The fact the question is being asked so openly at a large, public corporation is proof that Trump has little chance in the general election.

    • Re:Non-Issue (Score:5, Insightful)

      by merky1 ( 83978 ) on Friday April 15, 2016 @03:09PM (#51917471) Journal

      Don't confuse elitist CA politics with a consensus view.

    • If Facebook did work to defeat Trump, could that be seen as In Kind contribution [wa.gov] to his opponents?

      • i may not be the typical american but i say, i hope they don't step in.

        be anti-trump on your own time. As i'm not particularly thrilled of newspapers endorsing a candidate I'm not thrilled of any corporation endorsing a candidate. Or do they think this wouldn't contribute to a fucking hostile workplace for people who don't share their POLITICAL opinion?

        As an american, i'm not going to let anonymous, or facebook, even think they can tell me what to do. I'd vote for trump in protest of facebook, if i weren

        • be anti-trump on your own time.

          If they're Facebook employees, then it's Facebook's own time.

          Funny how support of corporate involvement in elections depends on whether it's your candidate that's getting support or opposition from the corporation.

          • Ironed out my position. any corporation can say "the editorial board of x endorses this or that candidate" but that's the end of it. anything more, promoting puff pieces, tamping down on other pieces, charging less of one side or the other. that leads to directions that i think would make our democracy weaker.

      • If Facebook did work to defeat Trump, could that be seen as In Kind contribution [wa.gov] to his opponents?

        As long as the endless hours of Fox News Trump boosterism is also seen as an in kind contribution.

      • by tomhath ( 637240 )
        No more than Oprah giving Obama free publicity and a few million dollars eight years ago.
  • by Sobieski ( 1032500 ) on Friday April 15, 2016 @03:07PM (#51917453)

    Skynet us already, all these decisions are taking away valuable Candy Crush playing time!

  • by servo335 ( 853111 ) on Friday April 15, 2016 @03:08PM (#51917467) Homepage
    Facebook is just a forum they should stay neutral and let the Democratic process work. While people may not agree with Trump it doesn't mean stop him from running for president. After all we are the same population whop allowed 2 terms for "W"
    • by geekmux ( 1040042 ) on Friday April 15, 2016 @03:16PM (#51917539)

      Facebook is just a forum they should stay neutral and let the Democratic process work.

      This. All damn day long.

      And touting that Facebook has a billion users so they should have a say is akin to asking China or India to help out with the US election. Pure numbers mean fuck-all with this, and it rather disgusts me that employees of a social media system assume they hold any responsibility to "prevent" (read: manipulate) the election of one of the most powerful positions on this planet.

      TL;DR - Know your fucking place, Facebook.

      • by DRJlaw ( 946416 )

        Facebook is just a forum they should stay neutral and let the Democratic process work.

        This. All damn day long.
        * * *
        TL;DR - Know your fucking place, Facebook.

        Facebook's place is whatever Facebook wants it to be, which will be determined by its management, its employees, and perhaps most importantly how this affects its long term interests (both in user reaction and Trumpian threats to loosen up defamation law to make people who criticize Trump far easier to punish).

        No law requires organizations to uphold mid

      • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) on Friday April 15, 2016 @03:33PM (#51917679) Homepage Journal

        Isn't the conservative view that corporations have similar rights to people, especially when it comes to politics? So presumably many Trump supporters would support Facebook's right to take a political position and support the candidate of their choice.

      • "Writing in the New Republic in 2014, Jonathan Zittrain, professor of international law at Harvard University, pointed out that, given the massive amount of information it has collected about its users, Facebook could easily send such messages only to people who support one particular party or candidate, and that doing so could easily flip a close election – with no one knowing that this has occurred. And because advertisements, like search rankings, are ephemeral, manipulating an election in this way
    • I kind of agree, in that Facebook shouldn't use it's platform to try to influence the race. But Facebook employees should feel free to do their part to support the candidate of their choice.
      • The key is whether they're doing it during their own time (donating/campaigning/etc) or during company time (e.g. writing an algorithm that determines whether and article is pro- or anti-Trump and ranking it in a Facebook feed accordingly). The former is perfectly fine. The latter is not acceptable - regardless of what Zuckerberg says.

        • by DRJlaw ( 946416 )

          The former is perfectly fine. The latter is not acceptable - regardless of what Zuckerberg says.

          Says who? And that's not an academic question.

          The reports that I have read say that Zuckerberg has a majority of the voting power in Facebook shares. That was no secret when others bought into Facebook's public offering. Therefore if Zuckerberg says so there's virtually nothing that the board of directors, shareholders, or God can do to change it.

          If you think that shareholders can simply sue the company becaus

      • by in10se ( 472253 )

        But Facebook employees should feel free to do their part to support the candidate of their choice.

        That brings up an interesting issue. How do social media sites such as Facebook handle posts by their employees? If I post something to my company's web site or intranet (even during off-hours) it better be both professional and business related.

        • by AuMatar ( 183847 )

          FB doesn't. As long as we weren't saying "As an FB employee, blah" they didn't care what we posted, and we were encouraged to use their software heavily (they believe in dogfooding). Now if you tried to make it sound like you were speaking as Facebook, that was a problem. And if you were an executive you probably had some more scrutiny. But as an engineer, you were allowed to use your profile as normal. (Normal caveats apply- if you posted a racist rant that got national newspaper coverage you'd proba

    • by McGiraf ( 196030 ) on Friday April 15, 2016 @03:22PM (#51917607)

      Facebook is not a forum, it's an ad delivery system.

    • Facebook is just a forum they should stay neutral and let the Democratic process work. While people may not agree with Trump it doesn't mean stop him from running for president. After all we are the same population whop allowed 2 terms for "W"

      The Koch brothers are just a couple of stuffy ultra conservative business men, they should stay neutral but they aren't doing that and won't stop their political meddling any time soon. In a perfect world businesses and wealthy individuals would all stay neutral and allow the Democratic process to work but we don't live in a perfect world. So why should Facebook, which is basically a collection of latte slurping liberals, not use their money and position to mobilise other latte slurping liberals to get off

    • by drew_kime ( 303965 ) on Friday April 15, 2016 @03:40PM (#51917737) Journal

      Facebook is just a forum they should stay neutral and let the Democratic process work.

      Should Fox News stay neutral and let the Democratic process work?

      If the answer is "Yes" for Facebook and "No" for Fox, why?

  • Yes the do (Score:3, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 15, 2016 @03:11PM (#51917485)

    Yes, they do have a legal responsibility. It's one thing to say they have no responsibility for what people post, although they do in their terms in regards to hate speech and the like.

    But the officers and Directors of Facebook have a legal responsibility to protect and maximize the value of their shareholders. If Facebook were to take an active stance in filtering content to attempt to alter the political landscape, they risk alienating a rather large userbase those political ideas. The fact is that enough users support Trump that if Facebook attempted to skew the results, they risk alienating that userbase and losing them, which in turn affects Facebook's value and revenue that their officers and Directors are legally required to protect.

    And even if it did work, and Trump was defeated and Clinton or Sanders got elected, both the Republicans and the Democrats would unify and pass a law stopping that from ever happening again. Neither party wants a bunch of millenial nitwits having that kind of political clout; that kind of manipulation would be regulated into oblivion with full bi-partisan support.

    Attempting to sway a political discussion risks a blowback that could result in a shareholder lawsuit and throwing out the Board and Officers, and is a really stupid idea for a company. Despite the ideology of Facebook employees which most likely skew one particular direction, this would be a very bad idea for Facebook. Their prupose is to provide a social media service to users and in turn sell those users' viewing minutes to advertisers, not to attempt to sway political opinion.

    • Re:Yes the do (Score:5, Insightful)

      by crunchygranola ( 1954152 ) on Friday April 15, 2016 @03:35PM (#51917699)

      This is a political "just so" story, describing a possible line of argument about how "a legal responsibility to protect and maximize the value of their shareholders" might be interpreted. It is not a necessary, or even likely, conclusion.

      There is abundant data showing that political spending has, on average, an extremely large ROI, exceeding 100-1. Regulatory rulings can cause tens of billions of dollars to change hands. It is an easy case to make that efforts to influence political races is not just wise, but incumbent on a corporation explicitly to protect shareholder value.

      And in an age where unlimited corporate political spending on its own influence operations is legal, and where the content delivered by a news channel is legally regarded as "entertainment", with no sanction for out-right fabrications being passed off as fact, it is hard to know what sort of activity by a corporation would be impermissible.

      Pretty much the only think illegal these days is paying Congressfolk a sum of money for a specific vote. It is fine though to keep them on retainer, paying regularly to their "leadership PAC" (from which the can keep all of the proceeds), and telling them periodically how they should vote, with the politician knowing that the sugar stops if the lobbyist is not obeyed. Not for sale, but all them are being rented.

  • by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 15, 2016 @03:11PM (#51917487)

    Cruz is far worse than Trump. Even Hillary is worse than Trump on some issues.

    National polls have shown that Bernie stands a far better shot at defeating any Republican candidate than Hillary does. If Facebook wants to stop Trump and similar demagogues, their best bet is to support Bernie.

  • by swb ( 14022 ) on Friday April 15, 2016 @03:13PM (#51917507)

    Isn't the argument that firms don't have any responsibility other than the fiduciary interest of their shareholders?

    So shouldn't Facebook only care about which Presidential candidate will increase the profitability of Facebook?

    Given all the time people seem to spend posting anti-Trump messages on Facebook now, you could almost argue that they have a fiduciary interest in assuring a President Trump because it will surely create the "social dynamics" which leads to more Facebook use.

    Or if that analysis isn't good enough, shouldn't they look to support a Presidential candidate whose economic policies will support multinational corporations (lower taxes, more H1Bs, etc etc)?

    They've lost me when they can't find "good deeds" to do with higher priority than "stopping" a candidate unlikely to end up on the ballot.

    • by borcharc ( 56372 ) *

      Facebook has a duty to protect its core business. People are more likely to abandon Facebook if they try and push a political slant. People are not stupid and see through crap like that. The general discourse on Facebook is already so low that I closed up shop there months ago and have no plans to return. It has become a cesspool. If Facebook wants to become the next Myspace, they should be sure to give those on the edge of quitting a little push.

  • They (Facebook employees) vote on what questions they will ask their boss? How about unscripted Q&A? As I said in the last political thread. If Bernie is the nomination, I'll vote Libertarian. If it's that criminal bitch Clinton, I vote Trump.
  • I don't think Facebook's and Zuckerberg situation is anything new, historically speaking.

    It seems very similar to me to the power that newspaper conglomerate owners held over the past few centuries in America: William Randolph Hurst, Rupert Murdoch, etc.

    • Right you are. Both those men aggressively manipulated the political environment (Murdoch still does) without any fear of sanction. Not even the Fairness Doctrine on public airwaves still exists. Of course Facebook can influence the election, if it wants. It is the American Way.

    • by Etcetera ( 14711 )

      I don't think Facebook's and Zuckerberg situation is anything new, historically speaking.

      It seems very similar to me to the power that newspaper conglomerate owners held over the past few centuries in America: William Randolph Hurst, Rupert Murdoch, etc.

      Actually, I'd say it's quite different. Ginormous "social network systems" are ubiquitous enough that their singular (rather than collective) power far exceeds any particular media outlet, in part because it's not clear that you're dealing with "press" at all.

      Facebook, Twitter, Google^H^H^H^H^H^H Alphabet, etc. tread the line between media facilitators and pure communications methods at this point. Perhaps not quite as "common carrier" as AT&T's land lines, but something in between in terms of monopolis

  • I've read many articles comparing Trump's manners with Facebook posts. Hey Mark, maybe you could use this to your advantage?

    • To drive this home a bit...

      Trump is outlandish.
      Trump speaks often without thinking through what is said.
      Trump says things that aren't true.
      Trump puts people on edge.

      Now think about Facebook posts.... get it?

  • It's where we get our news, share our political views, and interact with politicians.

    Really? I have never got my news from Facebook, never! People forget that many of those so called Facebook accounts are accounts held by single entities, and for others, they are kind of dormant.

    • by Etcetera ( 14711 )

      It's where we get our news, share our political views, and interact with politicians.

      Really? I have never got my news from Facebook, never! People forget that many of those so called Facebook accounts are accounts held by single entities, and for others, they are kind of dormant.

      Broadly speaking, among heavy web users, you're a rarity. Facebook, Twitter, and other social network sites (but those two in particular) are exceedingly popular. Facebook and Google essentially control the advertising market, and in many cases FB has enough aggregate data on its users to predict things about them before they know it (eg, a relationship forming). With that type of data, it's easy to manipulate presentation and Facebook has in fact already admitted to doing it experimentally on unwitting use

      • Maybe it depends on your age or your country, but I asked my friends about it and there's only three of them who use Facebook and none use Twitter.

  • 1HB's are scared.

    We need to end this enslavement now!

  • I hate Trump as much as the next owner of his/her own brain, but Facebook should do nothing. It's a company. It's a system of contracts. It has no place getting involved in politics. None of them do.

    Politics, campaign funding, and voting is for people.
  • not "Neutral" (Score:4, Interesting)

    by supernova87a ( 532540 ) <kepler1&hotmail,com> on Friday April 15, 2016 @03:22PM (#51917593)
    One point of view is that Facebook is inherently making some sort of decisions about which stories to prioritize / have appear in people's feeds, search results, etc. (whether explicitly or through the tuning of the algorithms), so it is already taking a point of view on how an issue like Donald Trump should be handled. That position, right now, might be "nothing", but it is a position.

    To take another example, when you Google some offensive terms, Google will show you or give you an explanation of why those results have risen to the top.

    Who decides whether some issue rises to the level that it should get some explanation or special treatment? And who decides what the right side of it is -- such that the "democractic" search results should be interfered with? Then, what's the action to be taken, and what outcome is the action attempting to accomplish? Here, the goal would be contributing to someone losing a political race. That's very different from explaining a search result difference... And the problem is that these issues are not imminent threats, like a bomb or child abduction or terrorist threat. They are ideas, not yet actions. That is a hard line to cross, to figure out when it rises to a threshold to act.

    Finally remember, as a insightful saying goes, "neutrality or refusal to take a position generally favors the aggressor in a fight". But knowing what to do instead of whether to stay neutral is a very different question.
  • It's one this for Facebook, Inc. to take a political position and back it with money or what-not.

    It's another thing all together for Facebook as a service provider to treat their custumers differently based on their political views or to allow some political discourse but not other dscourse.

    The latter usually backfires unless the "silenced" topics are almost universally reviled by your customers and prospective customers or at least that the censorship has nearly-universal customer support.

    In other words, i

    • by Etcetera ( 14711 )

      It's one this for Facebook, Inc. to take a political position and back it with money or what-not.

      It's another thing all together for Facebook as a service provider to treat their custumers differently based on their political views or to allow some political discourse but not other dscourse.

      The latter usually backfires unless the "silenced" topics are almost universally reviled by your customers and prospective customers or at least that the censorship has nearly-universal customer support.

      In other words, if Facebook treated pro-Trump content differently than pro-other-candidate material, it will bite them bad.

      That's where monopoly positions, especially monopoly positions in mass communication, come into play. If there are little other options compared to the "ease" of staying (because everyone else is there) then you don't have any realistic leverage.

      This was different in the days of Altavista vs Yahoo vs Google, and Friendster vs MySpace vs Facebook, but not any more. Google and FB (and Apple, at an OS level) essentially control your fortunes.

      Just ask any business whose Google pagerank has been mysteriously obl

  • Zuck's job is to maximize shareholder value and therefore it would be wise not to. It might just be Trump voters he pisses off and they might be mad enough to quit. Maybe they move on to something else at some point, which is dangerous because those people are the product Facebook sells.

    And it's not going to just be about Trump once they set the precedent. Facebook could just decide who it wants to see promoted on their site and silence dissent. That should be far more concerning to you if you're an investo

  • Not being a troll, but I figured people were dropping off. I used FB for several years, then finally got tired of hearing how fantastic everyone was and how I should stop the abuse of toasters by signing yet another petition. Besides my two teenagers have zero interest in FB. For them it is all about snapchat, oovoo and a little bit of Twitter.

    I'm surprised they have influence enough to make this an issue.
  • by gnu-sucks ( 561404 ) on Friday April 15, 2016 @03:42PM (#51917759) Journal

    The obvious answer is "None."

    Facebook should not interfere with the political process. It has no responsibility to be a political entity.

    If you don't like Trump, then it is YOU that has the responsibility to do something about it. Not a private corporation.

  • but sure, stop Trump from running in 2017, if you must.

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • by ilsaloving ( 1534307 ) on Friday April 15, 2016 @05:08PM (#51918367)

    My immediate reaction is, "No, as a company they should not try to interfere in the political process."

    However, there are so many *other* companies that are already doing just that, going so far as to crease fabricated 'grassroots' organizations to push specific candidates, that I want to say, "You know what? Screw it. Go ahead. At least you're being honest about it."

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