Facebook held back on Trump and Russia so Republicans wouldn’t get angry

Image: Matt McClain/The Washington Post via Getty Images

Community first, eh?

A New York Times report published Wednesday is full of bombshells about how Facebook has handled (and mishandled) its last two years of turmoil. Amidst allegations of pettiness and tales of public relations coups, the report reveals how hard Facebook tried to remain in the good graces of politicians, even at the expense of the “transparency” and “community” it champions.

Notably, on more than one occasion, Facebook chose to appease and avoid confrontation with Republican politicians, rather than take aggressive action to combat Russian and Trumpian propaganda. 

When Facebook grappled with what to do with the first of many egregiously racist Trump posts, it chose to prioritize appearing to support non-partisan “free speech,” instead of enforcing a strong policy against hate speech. 

Then-candidate Trump’s racist 2015 post calling for the barring of all Muslims from America reportedly shocked Mark Zuckerberg. The CEO asked his team to review Trump’s post to determine whether it violated any terms of service. Rather than seizing on what some viewed as an opportunity for Facebook to take a stand against hate speech, the senior team decided to keep Trump’s post up. The reason: so that Facebook wouldn’t “be seen as obstructing free speech” and to avoid “stok[ing] a conservative backlash.”

“Don’t poke the bear.”

Or, as Joel Kaplan, Facebook’s vice president for corporate public policy, reportedly put it: “Don’t poke the bear.”

In another instance, Facebook toned down its report about information manipulation on the platform — entirely avoiding the subject of Russia — after Kaplan again warned against angering conservatives. 

Alex Stamos, Facebook’s former chief security officer, directed a team to begin probing Russian manipulation on the platform in the spring of 2016. 

The team investigating propaganda wanted to publish a public paper on its findings in January 2017. But Kaplan objected to publishing the findings because it could damage relationships with Republicans. 

“If Facebook implicated Russia further, Mr. Kaplan said, Republicans would accuse the company of siding with Democrats,” the Times writes.

Stamos and his team ended up publishing a paper in April entitled “Information Operations and Facebook” — which contained no mention of Russia’s efforts.

Mashable reached out Facebook to ask whether the Times‘ report is accurate, and how Facebook balances political concerns with interests of national security, transparency, and community. But the Times story demonstrates a few things. 

First, it shows the lengths to which Facebook went to assuage bad faith Republican complaints — as Facebook and others have done in the past.

Second, it shows the stunning amount of sway that political optics had over Facebook’s decision making with regard to a national security issue. 

With the Trump post, it allowed speech on the platform not because of an actual dedication to free speech, but to avoid angering conservatives. And with the Russian report that never was, it chose to obfuscate the actions of a malicious foreign entity for the sake of not appearing partisan. 

Of course, the idea that Russian social media manipulation is a partisan issue is a problem in its own right. But so was Facebook’s decision to cater to that political fray, rather than make the decisions that would best allow the company and government to combat international cyber-warfare. 

Facebook has repeatedly said that the company’s priority is its users. But clearly, decisions aren’t always made with simply the best interests of that “community” in mind.