Facebook workers criticize Zuckerberg over Trump posts

Facebook employees are speaking out this weekend about Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s lack of movement to take down President Trump’s posts. Yahoo Finance’s Brian Sozzi, Alexis Christoforous, and Dan Howley break down the details.

Video Transcript

ALEXIS CHRISTOFOROUS: We've got some Facebook employees not very happy with their CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, today. Some of those employees took to Twitter over the recent-- or over the weekend, rather, to criticize the company's decision to leave up President Donald Trump's post saying that, quote, "when the looting starts, the shooting starts" in response to widespread protests against police killings. Some of them saying they are not happy with the way and they're not proud of being part of the company and the way that it is responding.

Our tech correspondent Dan Howley is joining us now with more on this. So, Dan, what's going on there behind the scenes at Facebook? What else do we know?

DAN HOWLEY: Yeah, it looks like these senior officials are really upset about what-- or the lack of movement on Mark Zuckerberg's part in addressing the post or removing the post, rather, or at least putting some kind of warning on it. It seems to go completely against what he had told Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez when she asked if the company would remove any posts that point to the potential for violence. He had said that they would do that regardless of whether or not it's an elected official. And as you can tell, they haven't taken down President Trump's post in which he had mentioned, well, "when the looting starts, the shooting starts."

BRIAN SOZZI: Dan, we've seen Facebook employees, even Twitter employees take to their various platforms and voice their grievances. But do you think we're at the point now where these employees might just go out and protest?

DAN HOWLEY: They could. You know, I mean, it's interesting because these are very senior, you know, employees and executives inside of Facebook that are pushing back against what Zuckerberg had said and basically addressing him directly in their tweets on the platform itself and saying, look, you know, we wholly disagree with what he's decided. We think that this is something that should be taken down or should be addressed better than simply a post.

For his part, Zuckerberg did mention-- didn't really mention the tweet itself by Trump in his own Facebook post, but he did say that they're going to donate additional money to services that work against racial injustice. So, you know, he seems to be not directly addressing the issue but rather dancing around it to a degree.

And, you know, it'll be interesting to see what these other employees-- who, you know, again, are high level in the company-- end up doing.

ALEXIS CHRISTOFOROUS: Dan, have we heard any more about President Trump wanting to legislate these social-media platforms? You know, we saw what he did with Twitter a few days ago. We're seeing what he's saying about Facebook. Any more news on whether or not that's going to gain some traction? I mean, they're going to definitely have some court challenges, to be sure.

DAN HOWLEY: Yeah, there hasn't been anything outside of what was announced, although at some point after President Trump's original-- second tweet, I guess, was covered up by Twitter, there was a tweet that he sent out saying revoke 230, meaning section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. That simply just can't be revoked. I mean, and according to the experts that I spoke to, it would have to come to Congress to make any significant changes to the law.

So it really doesn't sound like there's going to be much movement on it other than President Trump probably trying to get legislators to come around to making some significant change. But as far as the order goes, yeah, there will be lawsuits, you know, if anything moves forward with it right away.

ALEXIS CHRISTOFOROUS: You can bet that. Dan Howley, thanks so much.