Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg told staff that former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon deserves no suspension despite calling for the beheading of two senior government officials, Reuters reported Thursday.
Last week, the world's largest social network removed two videos from Bannon's official site after he said Dr. Anthony Fauci, the country's foremost infectious disease expert, and FBI Director Christopher Wray at the White House on pike should be issued a warning to federal bureaucrats. "Facebook said the videos violated the rules against inciting violence.
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However, Zuckerberg said Bannon didn't break the rules enough times to be suspended.
"We have specific rules on how often you have to break certain guidelines before we completely deactivate your account," Zuckerberg told employees, according to Reuters, who heard a recording of the internal meeting. "While the crimes here have, I believe, almost crossed that line, they clearly haven't crossed the line."
Facebook's relatively reluctant action contrasted with Twitter's response to the video. Twitter has permanently banned the @WarRoomPandemic account for violating its guidelines on glorifying violence. YouTube, which has a three-strike policy, shut down Bannon's video for violating the rules against incitement to violence and posted a strike against his account.
The decision not to lock Bannon's Facebook account has sparked criticism from Democrats, who say the social network is not doing enough to combat hate speech and misinformation. Zuckerberg will face some of them, including elected Vice President Kamala Harris next week, when he is due to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee.
"When the demand to behead your political enemies is not yours [company's] Politics too [suspend] an account, should you probably reevaluate your policies? "Megan Clasen, Media Advisor to President-Elect Joe Biden, tweeted on Thursday.
Facebook did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Facebook's Anti-Incitement to Violence Policy states that the company will "remove content, disable accounts, and work with law enforcement if we believe there is a real risk of physical harm or direct threats to public safety." It does not specify when to deactivate an account instead of just removing content that requires violence.
Zuckerberg, who did not make public comments on Biden's presidential victory, also told staff that the Democrat "will be our next president," BuzzFeed News reported. The social network has flagged false claims about election fraud and noted that media forecast Biden as the winner of the presidential election.
"I think the election results are now clear and Joe Biden will be our next president," Zuckerberg said in a replay of a staff meeting received from BuzzFeed News. "It's important that people trust that the elections were fundamentally fair, and that goes for the tens of millions of people who voted for Trump."
