News Information and Media Site: Byers Market: Mark Zuckerberg, Jack Dorsey and the future of speech

June 1, 2020

By DYLAN BYERS in Los Angeles &

AHIZA GARCÍA-HODGES in San Francisco

Good morning. 🔥 America on fire: Protests have erupted in more than 140 cities and the National Guard has been activated in at least 20 states since George Floyd died in police custody one week ago. Meanwhile, the White House has gone dark, turning off almost all of its external lights on Sunday night as demonstrators raged across the nation's capitol.

• Today's front pages: NYT: "Twin Crises and Surging Anger Convulse U.S."; WaPo: "U.S. at a precipice as demonstrations intensify"; WSJ: Anger, Unrest Sweet Across U.S."

🏛️ What's next: "President Donald Trump has dismissed advice from his allies urging him to tone down his rhetoric," our colleagues Shannon Pettypiece, Monica Alba and Kristen Welker report. "He spent [Sunday] on Twitter, doubling down on a strategy of calling for stronger police tactics that critics say is only worsening the situation."

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Future of speech

Mark Zuckerberg fights for an unpopular cause

Moving the Market: Mark Zuckerberg is facing growing pressure from critics inside and outside of Facebook over his controversial decision to do nothing about the incendiary posts in which President Trump appeared to call for violence against protestors by tweeting, "when the looting starts, the shooting starts."

• The latest: At least a dozen Facebook employees took to Twitter last night to voice their disapproval with Zuckerberg's decision. "I am not proud of how we're showing up," one wrote in an illustrative post. "The majority of coworkers I've spoken to feel the same way."

The big picture: Zuckerberg is fighting to keep Facebook agnostic on matters of political speech, a position that has become increasingly unpopular as Trump tests the boundaries of what's acceptable and Twitter takes a stand by adding warning labels to Trump's tweets.

• The Facebook chief is motivated by both practical and philosophical goals, sources familiar with his thinking say. On the practical side, he does not want to get mired in a political war with the president or with conservatives, especially as regulation looms in Washington.

• On the philosophical side, he firmly believes Facebook should be as open a platform as possible and should not make judgments about political speech. Any exception would set a dangerous precedent for Facebook, opening up a Pandora's Box in the U.S. and globally.

In waging this lonely battle, Zuckerberg has tried in myriad ways to demonstrate his support for racial justice and his opposition to the president's rhetoric, even as he stops short of taking actions that might counter or at least contextualize that rhetoric.

• On Friday, Zuckerberg told Trump by phone that he disagreed with his rhetoric about the protestors and that it was putting Facebook in a difficult position. (Details of the discussion, first reported by Axios, were confirmed by three sources with knowledge of the call).

• The same day, Zuckerberg wrote a Facebook post saying that while he had "a visceral negative reaction" to the president's "divisive and inflammatory rhetoric," Facebook "should enable as much expression as possible unless it will cause imminent risk of specific harms or dangers spelled out in clear policies."

• Late Sunday night, Zuckerberg wrote another post in which he said Facebook would donate $10 million to groups working on racial justice and disclosed that he and his wife's philanthropic initiative had been investing $40 million a year in such efforts.

What's next: None of these efforts will make Zuckerberg more popular in the eyes of his critics, nor will they stem the growing tide of frustration among his rank and file. His commitment to agnosticism will grow more unpopular the longer the protests go on and the more divisive and inflammatory the president's rhetoric becomes.

• But until Trump clearly runs afoul of Facebook's policies — which, it should be noted, he has not yet done — Zuckerberg is unlikely to buckle to public pressure. Whatever he thinks about the state of the world right now, his ultimate fealty is to Facebook.

Bloomberg/Getty

Terms of engagement

Jack Dorsey, in the muck

Big in the Bay, big in the Beltway: Jack Dorsey's decision to place a label on President Trump's tweets warning that they violated Twitter's policy against glorifying violence has drawn the CEO into what will likely be a protracted confrontation with the White House.

• The big picture: The move has thrust Twitter's philosopher CEO, known in Silicon Valley for his fasting rituals and meditation retreats, into the very real and messy world of American politics in the Trump era. It could have major ramifications for him and for Twitter.

What's next: "Twitter's position is precarious," NYT's Kate Conger reports. "The company is grappling with charges of bias from the right over its labeling of Mr. Trump's tweets... Yet Twitter's critics on the left said that by leaving Mr. Trump's tweets up and not banning him from the site, it was enabling the president."

• "Twitter is girding for a protracted battle with Mr. Trump. Some employees have locked down their social media accounts and deleted their professional affiliation to avoid being harassed. Executives, holed up at home, are meeting virtually to discuss next steps while also handling a surge of misinformation related to the pandemic."

Top talker: Maureen Dowd to Dorsey, in Sunday's NYT: "C'mon, @Jack. You can do it. Throw on some Kendrick Lamar and get your head in the right space. Pour yourself a big old glass of salt juice. Draw an ice bath and fire up the cryotherapy pod and the infrared sauna. Then just pull the plug on him. You know you want to."

• "Do Trump — and the world — a favor and send him back into the void whence he came. And then go have some fun: Meditate and fast for days on end!"

📖 Mark, Jack 📖

Some important context for those following Facebook and Twitter's differing responses to the president's tweets: It would be wrong to say that they have different policies on issues like the promotion of violence (or hate speech).

• The policies are remarkably similar. The difference is really about interpretation and application. Recode's Shirin Ghaffary has a good explainer on that here.

Steve Jennings/Getty

Snap forward

Evan Spiegel's call for justice

Big in L.A.: Evan Spiegel has "called for the creation of an American commission to address racial injustice and comprehensive tax reform, saying in a lengthy note... that he was 'heartbroken and enraged' by racism in America," The Information's Alex Heath reports.

• The big picture: "The comments... shed light on the press-shy billionaire's view of philanthropy and Snapchat's stance on how to handle posts from world leaders that violate company policies. ... At 29 years old, Spiegel is one of the youngest billionaires in the world with an estimated net worth of $3.9 billion."

The details: In the 2,000-word memo, shared with Snap employees late Sunday, "Spiegel calls for a commission on racism and its legacy similar to the one South Africa instituted after the end of apartheid and a more 'progressive income tax system' that includes higher estate, business, and wealth taxes."

• "In short, people like me will pay a lot more in taxes — and I believe it will be worth it to create a society that benefits all of us," Spiegel writes. "Private philanthropy can patch holes, or accelerate progress, but it alone cannot cross the deep and wide chasm of injustice."

Big in the Beltway: Spiegel also said Snapchat's Discover tab "cannot promote accounts in America that are linked to people who incite racial violence, whether they do so on or off our platform." He did not specify whether or how that would apply to President Trump.

Market Links

• Tim Cook addresses racism in staff memo (CNBC)

• Reed Hastings, et al, back 'Black Lives Matter' (NYT)

• Jeff Bezos curbs some operations amid protests (Bloomberg)

• Sundar Pichai rescinds offers to contract workers (NYT)

• Elon Musk made it to space. What's next? (Recode)

Samuel Corum/Getty

Line of fire

Journalists injured, arrested

Moving the media: Dozens of journalists have reportedly been attacked by law enforcement during the protests over the death of George Lloyd, WaPo's Paul Farhi and Elahe Izadi report.

• The big picture: "Not since the 1960s, when the nation was racked by civil rights demonstrations, antiwar protests and urban riots, has the press been embroiled in so much violence on American shores."

More, via NYT: "Linda Tirado, a freelance photographer... was shot in the left eye ... A television reporter in Louisville, Ky., was hit by a pepper ball... by an officer who appeared to be aiming at her..."

Mike Coppola/Getty

Ratings game

Jeff Zucker seizes moment

Talk of TV Land: "The coronavirus pandemic and the new urban crisis have made it impossible to look away [from cable news]," NYT's Ben Smith writes. "In this extraordinary news moment, the primacy of this supposedly dying medium has never been clearer, its ratings higher than ever."

• The big picture: "Between now and November, there's no chance it's a normal political year," CNN President Jeff Zucker tells Smith. "That's just not conceivable between now and the end of the year."

• CNN, which had trailed in the ratings for a while but tends to excel amid "all-consuming news stories," was particularly well-suited to seize this moment, Smith writes.

• Oh/and: Zucker is still stoking the flames of his political ambitions: "New York City is going to need a very strong mayor in the aftermath of this," he says, "and I always like a challenge."