Zuckerberg is increasingly isolated in his decision to not act against Trump after Snapchat barred the president from its high-profile Discover section (FB)
- Snapchat has removed President Trump from its Discover section.
- The app took action against Trump's posts that have been accused of glorifying and inciting violence.
- The photo-sharing app's decision puts more pressure on Facebook and makes Mark Zuckerberg look increasingly isolated.
- While Snapchat and Twitter both took action against Trump over the posts, Facebook insists they don't break its rules.
- Facebook's decision has prompted huge employee protests and resignations.
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On Wednesday, Snap, the parent company of the photo-messaging app Snapchat, announced it was removing Trump from its Discover section over a post he made about "shooting," which was in response to the ongoing US protests against racism and police brutality.
Twitter earlier accused the president of "glorifying violence" — but Facebook has taken the opposite approach.
CEO Mark Zuckerberg has insisted that Trump's post does not violate Facebook's rules and says the company will not take action against the head of state over it. The decision has been intensely controversial — sparking internal worker protests, resignations, and denouncements from early employees at the company.
Still, the 36-year-old billionaire CEO has not backed down, defending his position at a heated employee meeting on Tuesday.
But Snap's decision could place further pressure on Facebook to reconsider, and it illustrates that Facebook's position is controversial — even within Silicon Valley.
"As for Snapchat, we simply cannot promote accounts in America that are linked to people who incite racial violence, whether they do so on or off our platform," Snap CEO Evan Spiegel wrote in a memo. "We have spoken time and again about working hard to make a positive impact, and we will walk the talk with the content we promote on Snapchat."`
Snap's action is particularly notable because it came in response to a post that didn't appear on its platform. Twitter took action only on a tweet on its social network — affixing a warning label — while Facebook has refused to take action on a Facebook post.
But Snap determined that the president's off-network post was severe enough that it merited action on its platform — an unusually strong approach to content moderation for a social-media platform.
Trump is not barred from Snapchat, but he will no longer appear in Discover, a human-curated section of the app that highlights high-profile accounts and other content deemed important.
Over the past week, more than 300 cities around the US have seen mass protests, which were sparked by the death of George Floyd after a Minneapolis police officer knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes. As the protests spread, Trump shared a post that said in part: "When the looting starts, the shooting starts" — a phrase used by a Miami police chief during civil-rights unrest in the 1960s. (Trump has said he was not aware of the phrase's racist origins.)
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SEE ALSO: Mark Zuckerberg defends Facebook's decision to allow Trump's post in internal meeting even as employees protest and resign
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https://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-isolated-decision-trump-after-snapchat-2020-6
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