'It's Time for Significant Changes': Civil Rights Groups call for Facebook Leaders to step down

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/dec/17/facebook-civil-rights-groups-letter-step-down

Dozens of civil rights groups are calling for Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg to step down from Facebook’s board of directors following what they described as years of the company’s role in “generating bigotry and hatred towards vulnerable communities”.

In a letter sent to Zuckerberg, the company’s CEO, on Monday night, the Southern Poverty Law Center, Muslim Advocates, Equality Labs and MoveOn.org were among more than 30 groups demanding a restructuring of the board to improve accountability of senior leadership in the wake of recent scandals.

“It’s become abundantly clear that, as currently constituted, your leadership team is unable to adequately address the valid concerns of the civil rights community,” the letter stated. “It is now time for significant changes in, not only your policies, but also your leadership structure.”

In their call for better oversight, the groups cited a 14 November New York Times report that revealed that the company hired a PR firm that attempted to discredit its critics by claiming they were agents of the philanthropist George Soros, an antisemitic narrative.

“In the face of clear evidence that Facebook was being used to broadcast viral propaganda and inspire deadly bigoted campaigns, the company’s leadership consistently either looked the other way, or actively worked to lobby against meaningful regulation, shifted public opinion against its allies, and personally attacked its critics,” the letter states. “Though Facebook has had significant time, opportunity and the benefit of input from experts and advocacy groups to address the problems on the platform, your company chose to target civil rights groups and our allies instead of changing the way you do business.”

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Madihha Ahussain, special counsel for anti-Muslim bigotry at Muslim Advocates, one of the civil rights groups to sign the letter, said on Tuesday that the update “makes clear that Facebook has done little to meaningfully address the bigotry and discrimination that pervades its platform” and Sandberg’s statement “indicates a lack of understanding that, after years and years of abuse, significant reforms are urgently needed now”.

“We stand by our letter demanding serious changes to Facebook’s board,” Ahussain said. “The board is not in a position to hold its management accountable, it doesn’t match the demographics of its user community, and it doesn’t understand civil rights and serious reforms to it are necessary to protect vulnerable communities.”

Who even uses Facebook, its 2018? Gawd, I wouldn't let Mark Zuckerberg within 10 feet of my house, let alone run a tool I use to communicate. Then again, some other ass hat is probably reading all my dumb shit. Still, Mark is a basically biggest piece of shit, they made an entire movie to point that out, as if we even needed it to show how the lizard people own Facebook.

Seriously though, big companies need to get properly woke. They run entire communities and all they care about is selling the dumb shit we say. If gonna sell our info, at least do something meaningful with the money.

It's like watching two evils duke it out. "Can it end well for us?" is the question here.

I would prefer less lobbying(!), and less man-hunting by anti-opinion groups in the name of 'vulnerable communities' who they determine cannot handle certain words or sides of a debate.

“indicates a lack of understanding that, after years and years of abuse, significant reforms are urgently needed now” I wonder what abuse they are talking about? It isn't really shown or mentioned anywhere else in the article. I did a little search on the NYT investigation into Facebook and I'll read it later. Did the PR team say naughty things to their customers? What was the structural year on year abuse and why didn't they address it immediately? Or did nobody notice being abused? I also find it a little dubious that they call their own concerns 'valid.' That's a bit amateurish. They're not going to listen to what other people have to say about it? I guess that's fitting.