Facebook fired one of its engineers after criticizing company chairman Mark Zuckerberg for taking no action over controversial posts written by U.S. President Donald Trump on the site.
Brandon Dail confirmed that Facebook fired him for criticizing a colleague who refused to include statements of support for the Black Lives Matter movement in a Facebook user interface.
Facebook confirmed the reasons for Dail's dismissal, although at the time of the employees' protest, they indicated that they would not face punitive action.
Dail commented on his Twitter account in another tweet about Facebook's behavior during the protests over the killing of African-American citizen George Floyd that "deliberately refraining from making any statement is really political."
Donald Trump's social media posts, including Facebook, sparked controversy after he commented on looting and protests in the United States after Floyd's death by saying, "When looting starts, shooting begins."
Although Trump's Twitter account marked the same post as a glorification of violence, the Facebook post remained the same on the grounds of freedom of expression.
Brandon Dail again objected last week after Facebook and Twitter refrained from taking action over a Trump post about a conspiracy theory concerning 75-year-old protester Martin Gugino, who was seriously injured by police in Buffalo, New York.
Dail said: "Trump's attack on Martin Jugino is a clear violation of Facebook's anti-harassment rules," Dell said. It is very unfortunate that we are also not moving to delete it."
Mark Zuckerberg said he would consider making changes to Facebook's content policy days after employees resigned and some claimed he continued to make excuses for not challenging Trump.
He noted that the company would be more transparent about its decisions as to whether to delete publications or revise policies on publications that could cause voter suppression and would consider building software to promote racial justice.
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