Facebook employees say they are ‘caught in an abusive relationship’ with Trump as internal debates over George Floyd protests rage

Facbook known as "The social media giant" faces a boiling crisis that is dragging company into yet another major controversy, this one dealing with the explosive matters of police brutality, race and free speech.

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An emergency town hall meeting Facebook held this week, days after Donald Trump posted: “When the looting starts, the shooting starts” on his account, 5,500 Facebook employees had a demand for Mark Zuckerberg.

Before the meeting, the employees voted in a poll on which questions to ask the chief executive at the meeting, according to internal documents. The question that got the most votes: “Can we please change our policies around political free speech? Fact checking and removal of hate speech shouldn’t be exempt for politicians. 

Mr Zuckerberg also met privately with black executives to discuss their pain and objections to Mr Trump’s post, which referred to responding to protesters over George Floyd’s death while in Minneapolis police custody. And employees questioned whether Facebook was in an “abusive relationship” with the president, according to a trove of documents that included more than 200 posts from an internal message board that showed unrest among employees.

Although some Facebook employees have taken to public forums such as Twitter to express their displeasure, the internal poll and the documents show just how widely and quickly their dissent and discontent has spread about Mr Zuckerberg’s decision to double down on allowing unfettered speech by politicians on the platform. He even appeared on Fox News Channel last week to defend his viewpoint.

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• Facebook faces a boiling crisis that is dragging the company into yet another major controversy, this one dealing with the explosive matters of police brutality, race and free speech. And Mr Zuckerberg’s early public words about the issue – in which he said the post didn’t break the company’s rules against inciting violence – have sparked widespread anger internally, with three high-ranking employees quitting in protest and others complaining about the post on rival site Twitter. 
• Dozens of former employees signed a letter critiquing the decision, saying it was a betrayal of Facebook’s early ideals.
• Inside the company, criticism has been even more widespread and personal, according to the documents, which show how many employees believe Mr Trump is purposefully testing them. 
• Facebook, like other tech giants, has struggled to recruit African Americans, especially in its top ranks. That has led some employees to say that company leaders don’t understand how deep the issues are. 

• Only 4 per cent of employees are black, a number that falls to 3 per cent among senior leadership, according to Facebook’s latest diversity report. Only one black person, diversity chief Maxine Williams, was involved in making the decision to leave Mr Trump’s post up.