Zuckerberg Apologizes For Facebook's Part In Kenosha Violence

In a video to employees on Friday that was later made public, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg apologized for the platform’s failure to move fast enough to remove the page of the right-wing militia group that appears to have incited the shooting deaths of two protesters in Kenosha, Wisconsin.

Facebook did not remove the page of the so-called Kenosha Guard until last Wednesday, after a gunman who described himself as part of militia efforts killed two people during a Tuesday night protest over the shooting of Jacob Blake by Kenosha police.

At least two Facebook users had reported the group and their page to Facebook, but Facebook moderators found them not to be in violation of the platform’s policies, according to the Verge, whose report apparently spurred Facebook to take action.

Zuckerberg posted his video Friday after a BuzzFeed report that Facebook employees criticized the CEO about this episode during a company meeting.

In it, Zuckerberg says that Facebook’s slow removal of the militia page, which issued a “call to arms” in advance of the protest, was “largely an operational mistake.”

“The contractors and reviewers who the initial complaints were funneled to basically didn’t pick this up,” Zuckerberg. “On second review, doing it more sensitively, the team that’s responsible for dangerous organizations recognized that this violated the policies and we took it down.”

The CEO also said that Facebook is now actively looking for and removing posts that praise the alleged gunman — although such posts, which violate Facebook’s policies, were reportedly still on the platform as of Thursday.

“We’re going to continue to enforce our policies and continue evolving the policies to be able to identify more potential dangerous organizations and improve our execution in order to keep on getting ahead of this,” Zuckerberg promises in the video. “I think that this shows that there is a real risk and a continued increased risk through the election during this very sensitive and polarized and just highly charged time.”

1 comment about "Zuckerberg Apologizes For Facebook's Part In Kenosha Violence".
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  1. Paula Lynn from Who Else Unlimited, August 31, 2020 at 5:45 p.m.

    Apology not accepted. fbeast and rivals must be broken up into teeny tiny pieces. Anti social media has created more destruction than it has helped. They all lose on the balance scales bigly.

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