Zuckerberg: no place for hate speech on Facebook

In a private memo posted on a company announcement page for employees, obtained by Gizmodo, Mark Zuckerberg said that he was “disappointed” by the “disrespectful behaviour”. Having already heard and ignored the warning, the employees’ behavior has escalated from “disrespectful” to “malicious”, Zuckerberg wrote.

“There have been several recent instances of people crossing out “black lives matter” and writing “all lives matter” on the walls” Zuckerberg wrote.

Facebook has faced criticism for being overwhelmingly male and predominantly white with 55 per cent of staff classed as Caucasian whilst just two per cent of staff are black.

Airline make woman, 81, move seats when religious man refuses to sit next to a femaleWhen asked about the site’s policy at the meeting, the BBC reported Zuckerberg said: ‘There’s not a place for this kind of content on Facebook. The incident is the latest display of an employee culture at a major technology company at odds with its diversity goals.

Facebook does not have rules restricting what people can write on the dry-erase wall at the company’s California office, Zuckerberg wrote, but anyone crossing out a phrase was apparently also crossing a line.

“But when someone says ALL lives matter, it can sound like that person is dismissing the specific pain behind the slogan”, CNN’s Donna Brazile wrote past year.

Facebook’s headquarters feature a signature wall where employees are free to write on and express their thoughts.

Calling the act as silencing speech, he emphasized that “Facebook should be a service and community where everyone is treated with respect”.

Earlier this month, Zuckerberg also had to rebuff comments made on Twitter about colonialism by Facebook board member Marc Andreessen.

It has grown over time into the name and rallying cry of a decentralized activist movement behind many protests against police violence and other issues facing the black American community.

Although the phrase “Black Lives Matter” become a rallying cry in 2012 following the death of unarmed black teenager Travyon Martin, it has been criticized for being too ethnocentric and misguided.