Leaked internal memos show discomfort with Facebook decision not to remove Trump posts

Several internal memos sent to employees at Facebook reveal a considerable level of discomfort with the social media giant’s decision not to block a number of posts published by US President Donald Trump as Twitter had done, The Verge news site reports.

“I have to say I am finding the contortions we have to go through incredibly hard to stomach,” one employee wrote regarding Trump’s posts on the protests against George Floyd’s killing. “All this points to a very high risk of a violent escalation and civil unrest in November and if we fail the test case here, history will not judge us kindly.”

Last week, Twitter labeled two of Trump’s tweets against mail-in voting as “potentially misleading” for suggesting the it would lead to a rigged election. Twitter later blocked another Trump tweet that included the sentence “when the looting starts, the shooting starts” under the argument that it “glorified violence.”

“We reviewed the claim and determined that it doesn’t break our rules against voter interference because it doesn’t mislead people about how they can register to vote or the different ways they can vote,” wrote Monika Bickert, Facebook’s vice president of global policy management. “If it had, we should have removed the post from our platform altogether because our voter interference policy applies to everyone, including politicians.”