Mark Zuckerberg Defends Keeping Trump's Facebook Post Online: It's 'Giving People A Voice'

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg defended his decision to keep President Donald Trump’s controversial post up on the world’s biggest social media platform.

In a conference call with employees on Tuesday, Zuckerberg addressed the issues thrown at Facebook for allowing Trump's post about violence to remain online. Trump had taken to both Twitter and Facebook on Friday, slamming the rioters and looters who have destroyed several establishments. He called out the protestors "thugs" and infamously posted, "when the looting starts, the shooting starts."

Twitter had kept the post up, but with a notice that it has violated its rules about glorifying violence. Facebook, however, has kept it as is, without any warnings. Facebook has always pride itself with its enabling value for free speech.

“We basically concluded … that the reference is clearly to aggressive policing – maybe excessive policing – but it has no history of being read as a dog whistle for vigilante supporters to take justice into their own hands,” Zuckerberg said in his call with Facebook employees across the globe, viewed by Recode.

Zuckerberg acknowledged that the decisions would upset many, but the move was in accordance with current Facebook policies. He promised, however, to improve the platform’s guidelines, but said that it couldn’t be done as a quick response to the issue at hand.

President Trump has since defended his post, saying that it was not calling for people to become violent against the rioters, but that it was a fact. In his succeeding statements, he called for "peaceful protests" and said that those responsible for the destruction and violence are drowning out the legitimate call for justice of the protesters.

The looting and rioting are being blamed on "outsiders" and "ideological extremists," and even "white supremacists." Protesters from Minneapolis have also condemned these acts, saying these are not in line with their rightful calls.

This is the most recent controversy Facebook has dealt with under Trump's administration. Facebook faced criticism in 2018 when news came out about the use of private data for a targeted political advertising. In what became known as The Cambridge Analytica scandal, data was collected from facebook users without their consent.