The liberal media sees working with President Donald Trump or Republicans as a black mark on one’s reputation. For The Washington Post, having a handful of Republican employees means that Facebook fears Trump and the GOP.
The result was a 4,107 word story that was more a whine about Facebook not being left-wing enough.
“A company led mainly by Democrats in the liberal bastion of Northern California repeatedly has tilted rightward to deliver policies, hiring decisions and public gestures sought by Republicans,” wrote national technology reporter Craig Timberg. The reasons for this tilt? “[T]hey’re afraid of angering Republicans,” former Facebook chief security officer Alex Stamos told The Post.
Timberg stated that Facebook was described by unnamed critics as having “a willingness to accede to political demands in an era when Republicans control most levers of power in Washington.” In fact, one former unnamed Facebook employee was quoted as saying, “This is what [Facebook] know[s] about Republicans: Tell them ‘yes’ or they will hurt us.”
However, Facebook seems to have had no trouble getting along with Democrats and liberals either, not that The Post cared. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has worked with Democratic candidate Mayor Pete Buttigieg. The Post even brought up the fact that Facebook employees donated $5,171 to Trump in 2016, but gave Clinton $1.1 million in that same timespan.
The article mentioned how Facebook modified a rule that “rankled antiabortion groups.” It left out how Facebook CFO Sheryl Sandberg has donated at least $2 million to Planned Parenthood.
More than that, Facebook has allowed Democrats and liberals to help shape its community standards. In 2018, Sandberg wrote that Facebook had a “civil rights audit” which was led by the former director of the American Civil Liberties Union, Laura Murphy. Over 90 civil rights organizations were consulted. Murphy wrote that she “rejected the false dichotomy of choosing free speech at the expense of other rights.” Sandberg wrote that the audit was “one of my top priorities for 2019.”
That endorsement was far stronger than anything the company said about its audit of the right.
But that’s not enough for The Post, which quoted Facebook executive Andrew Bosworth writing that Facebook was “responsible for Donald Trump getting elected.” Ironically, the piece itself noted that while the Trump campaign has spent $32 million on election ads, Democrats spent a whopping $107 million. But still, “they do this as a scared company,” journalism professor at the City University of New York Jeff Jarvis was quoted as saying.
Facebook Vice President for Global Public Policy Joel Kaplan, was noted as someone who made headlines supporting the nomination of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. He was depicted as someone who “dispensed with the tradition of having members of both major parties share power atop the Washington office.” The “small team of Republicans” gathered together by Kaplan were “the squeaky wheels,” said another person familiar with the company.
The decision to avoid fact-checking political ads was described as “yet another effort by Facebook to steer clear of Republican wrath.” Ignored was the quiet update from Facebook made in late 2019 that banned the denial of transgender people’s existence.
