Over hundred conservative Facebook employees have formed an online group to protest against the company’s “intolerant” liberal culture. First reported by the New York Times, these employees have formed an internal online group “FB’ers for Political Diversity”, which is a space for ideological diversity within the company.
Brian Amerige, a senior Facebook engineer wrote in the group, “We are a political monoculture that’s intolerant of different views. We claim to welcome all perspectives, but are quick to attack — often in mobs — anyone who presents a view that appears to be in opposition to left-leaning ideology.”
Said to follow the principles of Ayn Rand, Mr. Amerige, started working at Facebook in 2012. He posted a 527-word memo about political diversity at Facebook on his personal website on 20 Aug 2018. He also proposed that Facebook employees debate their political ideas in the new group to better equip the company to host a variety of viewpoints on its platform.
This activity comes as quite a surprise in Facebook’s largely liberal workplace culture – a rare sign of an organized disagreement. The last few years, Facebook witnessed many disturbing events, from the spread of misinformation by Russians, the mishandling of users’ data, and the ban of Alex Jones. Critics from the group consider these moves to be a sign that Facebook harbors an anti-conservative bias.
This new group has received both praise and backlash from Facebook employees.
Some say that its online posts were offensive to minorities. Per the New York Times, one engineer (name undisclosed), said “several people had lodged complaints with their managers about FB’ers for Political Diversity and were told that it had not broken any company rules.” However, some Facebook employees considered the group to be constructive and inclusive of different political viewpoints.
Facebook is yet to comment on their employees’ political ideology. With Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook’s chief operating officer, scheduled to testify at a Senate hearing about social media manipulation in elections, this protest adds a one more dimension to the social complexities that Facebook often finds itself these days.
For more details, read the original post on the New York Times.
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