Zuckerberg asked for Trump's 'hate speech' not to be removed from Facebook

Many employees complained on Facebook's internal messaging service that rules were being bent for Trump

While some Facebook employees tried to remove certain controversial posts by US presidential candidate Donand Trump from the website, CEO Mark Zuckerberg ruled that it would be inappropriate to censor the Republican Party nominee, media reported on Saturday.

According to a Wall Street Journal report, Zuckerberg's decision prompted employees across the board to complain on Facebook's internal messaging service and to Zuckerberg and other managers that it was bending the site's rules for Trump who posted about banning Muslims from entering the US.

"Some employees who work in a group charged with reviewing content on Facebook even threatened to quit," the report added.

Trump posted in December "on preventing Muslim immigration". His statement called for "a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country's representatives can figure out what is going on".

Users flagged the content as hate speech -- a move that triggered a review by Facebook's community-operations team.

Some Facebook employees -- including Muslims -- said in "internal chat rooms that the post broke Facebook's rules on hate speech as detailed in its internal guidelines, according to people familiar with the matter", the WSJ report said.

But content reviewers were asked by their managers not to remove the post.

"Facebook has never contacted us about employee complaints and has never removed a post," a spokeswoman for Trump's campaign was quoted as saying.

--IANS

na/dg