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THURSDAY, JUNE 4, 2020
Zuckerberg still under fire over inflammatory
Trump posts
OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA (AP) - Fa-
cebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg isn’t
budging over his refusal to take
action on inlammatory posts by
United States (US) President Don-
ald Trump that spread misinfor-
mation about voting by mail and,
many said, encouraged violence
against protesters.
His critics, however, are mul-
tiplying. Some employees have
publicly quit over the issue and
civil-rights leaders who met with
him on Monday night denounced
Zuckerberg’s
explanation
for
choosing to leave Trump’s posts
alone as “incomprehensible.”
A day after dozens of Face-
book employees staged a virtual
walkout over the issue, the Face-
book chief met on Tuesday with
employees for a Q&A session held
via online video. During that ses-
sion, which had been moved for-
ward from later in the week, Zuck-
erberg reportedly doubled down
on his stance to leave Trump’s
posts alone — although he did
suggest that the company was
considering changes to its exist-
ing policies around “state use of
force,” which Trump’s Minneapolis
post fell under.
Facebook rival Twitter lagged
and demoted a Trump tweet in
which he referenced protests over
police violence in Minneapolis us-
ing the phrase “when the looting
starts the shooting starts.” But Fa-
cebook let an identical message
stand on its service. Zuckerberg
explained his reasoning in a Face-
book post on Friday, a position he
has since reiterated several times.
“I know many people are up-
set that we’ve left the President’s
posts up, but our position is that
we should enable as much expres-
sion as possible unless it will cause
imminent risk of speciic harms or
dangers spelled out in clear poli-
cies,” Zuckerberg wrote.
The resignations, which mul-
tiple engineers tweeted and posted
on LinkedIn and Facebook, also be-
gan on Tuesday.
“I am proud to announce that as
of the end of today, I am no longer
a Facebook employee,” tweeted
Owen Anderson, who was an engi-
neering manager at the company
for two years. “To be clear, this was
in the works for a while. But after
last week, I am happy to no longer
support policies and values I vehe-
mently disagree with.”
Anderson did not immediately
respond to a message for comment
on Tuesday. But he wasn’t alone.
“Today, I submitted my resigna-
tion to Facebook,” Timothy J Aveni,
a software engineer who’d been at
the company for a year, wrote on
LinkedIn and on his Facebook page.
“I cannot stand by Facebook’s con-
tinued refusal to act on the presi-
dent’s bigoted messages aimed at
radicalising the American public.
I’m scared for my country, and I’m
watching my company do nothing
to challenge the increasingly dan-
gerous status quo.”
Aveni didnot immediately respond
to a message for further comment.
“We recognise the pain many
of our people are feeling right
now, especially our Black commu-
nity. We encourage employees to
speak openly when they disagree
with leadership,” Facebook said in
a statement. “As we face additional
dificult decisions around content
ahead, we’ll continue seeking their
honest feedback.”
Barry Schnitt, who served as
Facebook’s director of commu-
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg isn’t budging over his refusal to take action on in lammatory posts by President
Donald Trump that spread misinformation about voting by mail and, many said, encouraged violence against
protesters. PHOTO: AFP
nications and public policy from
2008 until 2012, wrote a blister-
ing Medium post on Monday.
“Facebook says, and may even
believe, that it is on the side of
free speech,” he wrote. “In fact, it
has put itself on the side of proit
and cowardice.”
“I do not think it is a coincidence
that Facebook’s choices appease
those in power who have made
misinformation, blatant racism and
inciting violence part of their plat-
form,” he added, urging Facebook
leaders to take responsibility and
“show the world that you are not
putting proit over values.”
Zuckerberg and other Facebook
leaders also met with civil rights
leaders on Monday night. That con-
versation apparently didn’t go well.
“We are disappointed and
stunned by Mark’s incomprehen-
sible explanations for allowing the
Trump posts to remain up,” three
civil-rights leaders wrote in a joint
statement. “He did not demon-
strate understanding of historic or
modern-day voter suppression and
he refuses to acknowledge how Fa-
cebook is facilitating Trump’s call
for violence against protesters.”
Signing that statement were
Vanita Gupta, president and CEO of
The Leadership Conference on Civil
and Human Rights; Sherrilyn Iill,
president and director-counsel of
the NAACP Legal Defense and Edu-
cational Fund and Rashad Robin-
son, president of Color of Change.
“Mark is setting a very danger-
ous precedent for other voices
who would say similar harmful
things on Facebook,” the three
leaders added.
Pandemic brings first Australian recession in
29 years
CANBERRA, AUSTRALIA (AP) - The
coronavirus pandemic pushed Aus-
tralia's economy into recession for
the irst time in 29 years in the irst
quarter of the year, and the situa-
tion is expected to get worse.
Treasurer Josh Frydenberg said
yesterday the current June quarter will
be the second in a row in which the
Australian economy has contracted.
A recession is deined as at
least two straight quarters of con-
traction. Data released yesterday
showed the economy shrank 0.3
per cent in the January-March quar-
ter due to destructive wildires and
the early stages of Australia's coro-
navirus lockdown.
Weak household consumption
was a major factor behind the de-
cline, as millions have lost their jobs.
"The June quarter, the econom-
ic impact, will be severe. Far more
severe than what we have seen to-
day," Frydenberg told reporters.
The Australian government has
promised more than USD220 billion
in stimulus spending and the central
bank has cut its benchmark interest
Key industrial
parks unveiled
in Hainan
free-trade port
HAIKOU (XINHUA) - A batch of
key industrial parks were un-
veiled yesterday in China's island
province of Hainan, in an effort to
promote the construction of the
Hainan free-trade port.
The 11 key parks around the
island cover three major ields, in-
cluding tourism, modern services
and advanced technologies.
The industrial parks are im-
portant areas to illustrate trade
and investment policies, pilot
ields for bold trials, innovations
and reforms and a new highland
for reform and opening up, said
Liu Cigui, Party chief of Hainan.
Liu said the key industrial
parks are expected to play a
leading role in the construction
of the free-trade port.
China on Monday released
the development plan for the
Hainan free-trade port, aiming
to build Hainan into a glob-
ally inluential, high-level, free-
trade port by the middle of
the century.
rate by a quarter of a percentage
point to a record low of 0.5 per cent
to help cushion the shock from the
pandemic. Australia's economy has
been growing since mid-1991 with
an occasional negative quarter in-
cluding during the global inancial
crisis in 2008, when Chinese de-
mand for iron ore and coal quickly
reversed the decline.
The slowdown in China's econo-
my, on top of weakening global de-
mand and the impact of the pandem-
ic, has pushed many countries into
their worst downturns in decades.
File photo shows a man riding a personal transporter past the Reserve Bank of Australia in Sydney. PHOTO: AP