Mark Zuckerberg says Facebook will ‘review’ policies on speech promoting state violence

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg released a lengthy statement on his personal page on Friday saying he supports the Black Lives Matter movement and will begin engaging in a series of reviews of company policy. Specifically, Zuckerberg says he and company leadership will review its controversial stance around “threats of state use of force,” following President Donald Trump’s statement about shooting protesters that sparked outrage and various levels of response from both Facebook and Twitter.

“We’re going to review our policies allowing discussion and threats of state use of force to see if there are any amendments we should adopt. There are two specific situations under this policy that we’re going to review,” Zuckerberg writes. “The first is around instances of excessive use of police or state force. Given the sensitive history in the US, this deserves special consideration. The second case is around when a country has ongoing civil unrest or violent conflicts.”

Zuckerberg also says Facebook will be reviewing how it handles violating content that depart from its binary, leave-it-up or take-it-down approach. “I know many of you think we should have labeled the President’s posts in some way last week. Our current policy is that if content is actually inciting violence, then the right mitigation is to take that content down — not let people continue seeing it behind a flag,” Zuckerberg writes. “There is no exception to this policy for politicians or newsworthiness. I think this policy is principled and reasonable, but I also respect a lot of the people who think there may be better alternatives, so I want to make sure we hear all those ideas.”

Additionally, Facebook will work to improve the transparency around how it makes these decisions and whether it can “change anything structurally to make sure the right groups and voices are at the table” when it does make a definitive choice around a controversial speech and moderation issue.

Important context here is that Facebook’s workforce is composed of less than 10 percent black and Hispanic employees. In 2018, a black employee, Mark Luckie, quit over what he publicly said was Facebook’s “black people problem,” referencing the company’s lip service regarding racial diversity and inclusion efforts that Luckie said rarely translated to meaningful change.