|
Zuckerberg acknowledged criticism of Facebook by President-elect
Joe Biden but said the company shared some of the Biden team's
same concerns about social media. He urged employees not to jump
to conclusions about how the new administration might approach
regulation of social media companies.
Bannon suggested in a video posted on Nov. 5 that FBI Director
Christopher Wray and government infectious diseases expert
Anthony Fauci should be beheaded, saying they had been disloyal
to U.S. President Donald Trump, who last week lost his
re-election bid to Biden.
"I'd put the heads on pikes. Right. I'd put them at the two
corners of the White House as a warning to federal bureaucrats.
You either get with the program or you are gone," Bannon said in
the video.
Facebook removed the video but left up Bannon's page, which has
about 175,000 followers. Twitter <TWTR.N> banned Bannon last
week over the same content.
"We have specific rules around how many times you need to
violate certain policies before we will deactivate your account
completely," Zuckerberg said. "While the offenses here, I think,
came close to crossing that line, they clearly did not cross the
line."
Facebook spokesman Andy Stone said the company would take
further action against Bannon's page "if there are additional
violations."
A Bannon spokeswoman said his comments were "clearly meant
metaphorically" and alluded to a reference Bannon had made the
day prior to the treason trial of Thomas More in Tudor England
"for rhetorical purposes."
"Mr. Bannon did not, would not and has never called for violence
of any kind," the spokeswoman, Alexandra Preate, said in a
statement.
Last Friday, Facebook took down a network of other Bannon-linked
pages that were pushing false claims about the presidential
election, after they were flagged to the world's biggest social
media company by activist group Avaaz.
Avaaz said seven of the largest pages had amassed nearly 2.5
million followers. Stone said Facebook had removed "several
clusters of activity for using inauthentic behavior tactics to
artificially boost how many people saw their content."
Zuckerberg spoke on the issue at a weekly forum with Facebook
employees where he is sometimes asked to defend content and
policy decisions. A staff member had asked why Bannon had not
been banned.
Another employee asked how Facebook was handling criticism of
Facebook by Biden and members of his team. Biden told the New
York Times in December last year that he had "never been a fan
of Facebook" and considered Zuckerberg "a real problem."
The incoming administration was "not monolithic," Zuckerberg
said. "Just because some people might talk in a way that's more
antagonistic to us, it doesn't necessarily mean that speaks for
what the whole group or whole administration is going to stand
for."
Bannon was arrested in August and has pleaded not guilty to
charges of defrauding hundreds of thousands of donors to the $25
million "We Build the Wall" campaign. Bannon has dismissed the
charges as politically motivated.
As Trump's chief White House strategist, Bannon helped
articulate Trump's "America First" policy. Trump fired him in
August 2017, ending Bannon's turbulent tenure.
(Reporting by Katie Paul; Additional reporting by Elizabeth
Culliford; Editing by Greg Mitchell, Howard Goller and Kim
Coghill)
[© 2020 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.] Copyright 2020 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Thompson Reuters is solely responsible for this content.
|
|
