Democrats on the House Committee on Homeland Security voiced concerns Wednesday over Facebook’s handling of President Trump “increasingly incendiary, violent and abhorrent” posts.
In a letter addressed to Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s co-founder and chief executive officer, the lawmakers warned of “disastrous consequences for our democracy” if his company continues to let Mr. Trump post on its platform unfettered from policies applied to other users.
Led by Rep. Bennie G. Thompson of Mississippi, the committee’s chairman, the letter also sought answers from Mr. Zuckerberg about his company’s rules for world leaders like Mr. Trump in light of Facebook failing so far to follow the lead of competing social media services such as Twitter and Snapchat and taking action against the president’s account.
“There is a difference between being a platform that facilitates public discourse and one that peddles incendiary, race-baiting innuendo guised as political speech for profit,” the Democrats wrote.
Signed by 11 of the 18 members of the committee’s Democratic majority, the letter was sent Tuesday amid Facebook coming under fire for doing nothing about several postings made recently by Mr. Trump that prompted other platforms to act.
Twitter notably flagged one of Mr. Trump’s tweets about mail-in voting for violating the platform’s policy against misinformation, as well as another post about shooting looters that the company’s flagged for inciting violence; Snap, Snapchat’s parent company, subsequently said it would stop promoting Mr. Trump’s account on that platform, meanwhile.
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Noting the decisions of both Twitter and Snap to act, the Democrats wrote that “Facebook has refused to demonstrate the same resolve as its competitors.”
Indeed, the lawmakers note that Mr. Zuckerberg has recently defended Facebook’s decision not to take action against Mr. Trump’s posts on the platform by reasoning that political speech is particularly critical and should not be censored.
However, the Democrats said they fail to see how musings such as Mr. Trump’s post threatening violence in response to looting that took place amid recent protests justify being left alone.
“We struggle to understand what valuable, protected political speech one can ascribe to a statement that callously threatens to send the National Guard in to shoot individuals during protests over police brutality, as the country grieves the most recent illegal killings of unarmed black people George Floyd and Breonna Taylor — by law enforcement,” they wrote.
“Unfortunately, there is another, more systemic problem with Facebook’s policy,” the added. “By taking a cavalier attitude toward violent, harassing, racially-charged rhetoric — so long as it is being offered by politicians or as thinly veiled as ’political speech’ — Facebook is creating conditions that will allow foreign disinformation campaigns to flourish. We know that nation-states like Russia are exploiting racial tensions to divide Americans as the November elections approach.”
The letter from lawmakers concludes with several questions for Mr. Zuckerberg about Facebook’s policies as they apply to world leaders, including whether the company will commit to removing, flagging, or otherwise taking action to address such posts that violate community guidelines against harassment, violence and misinformation.
Facebook confirmed receiving the letter when reached by The Washington Times and referred to a post Mr. Zuckerberg published on the platform last week.
“I believe our platforms can play a positive role in helping to heal the divisions in our society, and I’m committed to making sure our work pulls in this direction,” Mr. Zuckerberg wrote in the post.
• Andrew Blake can be reached at ablake@washingtontimes.com.
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