Facebook employees resign over Zuckerberg’s treatment of Trump post

While actions speak louder than words, sometimes a walkout just doesn’t cut it. 

At least two Facebook employees have apparently come to that conclusion, straight up resigning instead of joining their colleagues in a company-wide protest Monday. At issue was CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s defense of Donald Trump‘s Facebook post threatening protesters with death. That, it seems, was finally a bridge too far. 

Timothy Aveni, who, according to his LinkedIn profile, has been a software engineer at Facebook since June of 2019, shared his motivation for quitting on both LinkedIn and Facebook. 

“I cannot stand by Facebook’s continued refusal to act on the president’s bigoted messages aimed at radicalizing the American public,” he wrote Monday on LinkedIn. “I’m scared for my country, and I’m watching my company do nothing to challenge the increasingly dangerous status quo.”

He was even more blunt in a Facebook post. 

“Mark always told us that he would draw the line at speech that calls for violence,” wrote Aveni. “He showed us on Friday that this was a lie. Facebook will keep moving the goalposts every time Trump escalates, finding excuse after excuse not to act on increasingly dangerous rhetoric.”

We reached out to Aveni to determine whether or not he hopes this message will inspire other Facebook employees to follow suit and resign, but have received no immediate response. 

We also reached out to Facebook for a response to Aveni’s very public resignation, but, again, have received no response. 

While Facebook may not have much to say, at least one other now-former Facebook employee does. Owen Anderson announced Monday that he, too, was leaving Facebook. Anderson, whose LinkedIn lists him as having worked at Facebook since July of 2018, wrote that he was “proud to announce that as of the end of [Monday], I am no longer a Facebook employee.” 

He clarified that “this was in the works for a while,” but added that “after last week, I am happy to no long [sic] support policies and values I vehemently disagree with.”

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Mark Zuckerberg has shown time and time again that the voice that matters most to him is that which belongs to Trump. Perhaps, as more of his employees resign in protest, that will start to change. 

In the meantime, feel free to delete Facebook — because waiting for Mark Zuckerberg to do the right thing first means you’ll be waiting for a long, long time.