Facebook refused to provide additional information.
San Francisco:
Facebook Inc sacked an employee who criticized CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s decision not to take action on US President Donald Trump’s inflammatory messages this month, citing his tweet disputing a colleague’s silence on the question.
Seattle user interface engineer Brandon Dail wrote on Twitter that he was fired for publicly reprimanding a colleague who refused to include a statement of support for the Black Lives Matter movement in the developer documents he published .
Dail sent the tweet a day after joining dozens of employees, including the other six engineers on his team, leaving their offices and tweeting objections to Zuckerberg’s treatment of Trump’s messages in a rare protest against social media company.
“Intentionally not making a statement is already political,” Dail wrote in the tweet, sent on June 2. He said on Friday that he was sticking to what he had written.
Facebook confirmed that Dail’s qualification was dismissed, but declined to provide further information. The company said during the walkout that participating employees would not be retaliated against.
Dail did not respond to a request for comment.
Trump’s posts that sparked a public outcry included the racist phrase “when looting begins, filming begins” in reference to the protests against racism and police brutality that took place after the May 25 murder of George Floyd, a black man who died in police custody in Minneapolis.
Twitter posted a warning label on the same message, saying it glorified violence. Facebook chose to leave the message intact.
Zuckerberg defended his decision in a tense meeting with employees that week. During the meeting, Dail tweeted that it was “clear today that leaders are refusing to support us”.
Dail again objected this week after Facebook and Twitter refused to take action against a Trump article containing an unsubstantiated conspiracy theory about Martin Gugino, a 75-year-old protester who was seriously injured by the police in Buffalo, New York.
“Trump’s attack on Martin Gugino is despicable and a gross violation [of] Facebook anti-harassment rules. Again, it is extremely disappointing that we (and Twitter) did not delete it, “he said.
Internal dissent is often encouraged by tech giants in Silicon Valley, but companies have been accused of penalizing workers who organize and publicize complaints.
Google Alphabet fired at least five activists in the workplace late last year, while Amazon rejected criticism of its warehouse conditions during the coronavirus pandemic.
The two companies denied dismissing employees for reporting.
(This story has not been edited by GalacticGaming staff and is automatically generated from a syndicated feed.)
