Dissent Erupts at Facebook Over Hands-Off Stance on Political Ads

Mr. Zuckerberg also said Facebook’s policies were largely in line with what other social networks — like YouTube and Twitter — and most American television broadcasters had decided to run on their networks. Federal law mandates that broadcast networks cannot censor political ads from candidates running for office.

Inside Facebook, Mr. Zuckerberg’s decision to be hands-off on political ads has supporters. But dissenters said Facebook was not doing enough to check the lies from spreading across the platform.

While internal debate is not uncommon at the social network, it historically has seen less internal turmoil than other tech companies because of a strong sense of mission among its rank and file workers.

That has set it apart from Google and Amazon, which for the last few years have grappled with several employee uprisings. Most notably, 20,000 Google workers walked off the job in 2018 to protest the company’s massive payouts to executives accused of sexual harassment.

Last week, Google employees again challenged management over new software that some staff said was a surveillance tool to keep tabs on workplace dissent. At an employee meeting on Thursday, Sundar Pichai, Google’s chief executive, said he was working on ways to improve trust with employees, while acknowledging it was challenging to maintain transparency as the company grows. A video of Mr. Pichai’s comments was leaked to The Washington Post.

Amazon has faced employee pressure for nearly a year to do more to address the company’s impact on climate change. Some employees worked on a shareholder resolution to push the company on the matter, and more than 7,500 Amazon workers publicly signed a letter to support the proposal. In September, Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s chief executive, announced the company was accelerating its climate goals, aiming to be carbon neutral by 2040.

In the Facebook employee letter to Mr. Zuckerberg and other executives, the workers said the policy change on political advertising “doesn’t protect voices, but instead allows politicians to weaponize our platform by targeting people who believe that content posted by political figures is trustworthy.”

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/28/technology/facebook-mark-zuckerberg-political-ads.html?emc=rss&partner=rss