Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg(Photo: Jeff Chiu/Associated Press)
Facebook says it was a mistake.But the UAW and AFL-CIO say it is censorship and illegal.
Here's what happened: In an ongoing online discussion earlier this month, Facebook had a work session abouta new tool on its Workplace platform, which is an employee communications systemsimilar to Microsoft Teams.
Facebook leadersdiscussed that the tool could provide content control, designed for administrators tocut down onbullying and harassment. One example givenby Facebook as a way to avoid workplace harassment is to remove trending words such asunionize.
The suggestion outraged the UAW and AFL-CIO unions andprompted the UAWon Mondayto call for a congressional inquiry into Facebook. In the wake of that, the social media giant now says itwillsidelineplans to develop the toolforcontent control.
Working families deserve better from Facebook. Not only do these tools need to be pulled, Facebook needs to apologize and condemn this effort to deny working families basic rights," said UAW spokesman Brian Rothenberg.
"Blacklisting is illegal," said AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka in a statement Friday reacting to Facebook's example. "Employers censoring their employees speech about unionizing is illegal."
AFacebook spokeswoman told the Free Press content moderation tools are essentialto prevent bullying, but Facebook wastabling its plans.
While these kinds of content moderation tools are useful for companies, this example should never have been used and we apologize for it," said a Facebook spokeswoman in a statement. "The feature was only in early development and weve pulled any plans to roll it out while we think through next steps."
Facebook sells its Workplace platform to businesses "all over the world" to connect employees through chat and group messaging, a spokeswoman said. It was developing a new feature called "Hashtags" that would allow users to put a hashtag on a post to categorize it. A new tool would let a company-designated Workplace administrator delete a hashtagif that personfelt it was bullying or harassing.
Facebook executives wentonTwitter late Fridayapologized for the "unionize" example.
"Workplaces entire mission is to give everyone a voice, this is what were known for and what our customers buy our product for. There has been some buzz around a mistake we made earlier this week in sharing plans to employees about a new feature, called Hashtags," wrote Julien Codorniou, vice president of Workplace by Facebook.
In a string of five tweets, Codorniou also wrote: "An early mock screenshot of the feature used an example of a hashtag that could be removed by an admin, it was completely inappropriate and not focused on the intended use case (preventing bullying)."
Facebook Chief Technology Officer Mike Schroepfer also tweeted Friday, "Im sorry about the confusion around the intention of this product. The product was intended to combat bullying and harassment in the workplace but an inappropriate example was used. As this is a feature that we have not yet introduced it will go through rigorous review ... before ever launching."
Facebook said the proposed feature allowed only an administrator to delete the hashtag from trending posts, it would not let an admin delete the content, thread or hashtag entirely.
But the unions are having none of it. The UAW said the example implies denying working Americans their basic rights, to form a union if they so desire.
"Congress and federal agencies need to look carefully at what could lead this corporation to design tools meant to impede or deny the basic rights that Congress itself has given working Americans,"Rothenberg said.
Facebook's 48,000-person workforce is not unionized.
This isn't the first time Silicon Valley has castan apparentleery eye at unions. During the UAW's 40-day strike against General Motors last fall, Silicon Valley leaders watched as hourly factory workers took on the multibillion dollar global automaker. It wasa glimpse of what the future may hold for tech workers and tech executives.
UAW strikers with Local 22 take to the streets outside of GM Detroit-Hamtramck Assembly Monday, Sept. 16, 2019.(Photo: Mandi Wright, Detroit Free Press)
People are looking to Detroit as a modelfor how you can unionize and collectively mobilize against management, said Margaret OMara, author of The Code: Silicon Valley and the Remaking of America and a professor of history at the University of Washington.
More: GM strike is a surprising modern test of the power of workers versus corporations
Like the UAW, the AFL-CIO's Trumka says it's offensive for Facebook to even consider developing the tool.
"In the face of the rising collective action against racial and economic injustice, this new tool from Facebook is perhaps unsurprising, but it is also completely unacceptable and illegal," Trumka said.
AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka(Photo: Eric D. Lawrence)
The AFL-CIO demands that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg "personally apologize to working people, pull this tool immediately and conduct a board-level investigation into how this product came into existence in the first place."
The AFL-CIO also demands:
"We need a full report on this and a full affirmation from Zuckerberg that Facebook will unequivocally support the right to organize and the right to free speech for all workers," Trumka wrote.
A Facebook spokeswoman did not immediately provide the company's position on allowing workers to organize.
More: U.S. attorney, UAW president set meeting to root out corruption
Staff writer Phoebe Wall Howard contributed to this report.
Contact Jamie L. LaReau: 313-222-2149 or jlareau@freepress.com. Follow her on Twitter @jlareauan. Read more on General Motors and sign up for our autos newsletter.
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