Anonymous Pro-Trump Employee Forum Shut Down by Facebook
Facebook has shut down an anonymous pro-Trump online group created by its employees.
CEO and co-founder Mark Zuckerberg explained that the forum was taken down for allegedly helping spread harrassment. The internal group was called Facebook Anon and existed from May 2015 until it was temporarily shut down in Dec. 2016.
After the company leadership closed the online group, a sign with the words "Silenced, but not silent" alongside the beginning and end date of the group was seen on Facebook's campus.
Get Our Latest News for FREE
The last straw for Facebook, as reports point out, may have been the time when discussions about the Black Lives Matter movement started surfacing in the forum last year. During the same time, Zuckerberg scolded workers after they changed the group's name into "All Lives Matter" on the Facebook signature wall.
In a press release, Facebook Head of People Lori Goler clarified that the forum was taken down because it violated the company's Terms of Service. She explained that it could also be done to any group in the website, whether it is created by Facebook employees or not.
"The FB Anon internal Facebook group violated our Terms of Service, which require people who use Facebook (including our employees) to use an authentic identity on our platform," she said. "Last year we disabled any anonymous internal groups or pages within Facebook, and reminded our people of the places at our company where they can have discussions about issues that matter to them, openly or confidentially as appropriate."
News about Facebook Anon's shutdown comes in the heels of U.S. tech firms struggling to protect workers while fighting against hate speech. This recent issue is similar to the case of fired Google engineer James Damore, who released a memo claiming that women are not represented much in tech companies unlike men because of their physical differences.
