NAACP President and CEO Derrick Johnson told Cheddar he is "not surprised" a recent meeting between Facebook and civil rights organizations did not end as hoped.
The social media giant reached out as major advertisers pulled marketing campaigns, unhappy with the company's decision to allow hateful content and misinformation to live on the platform.
"Unfortunately we’re not surprised. After two years of discussion with Facebook, we’ve heard statements of value, we’ve heard statements of concern, and how we all agree. What we have not seen is action," Johnson stated.
The recent ad boycott began in the weeks after the police killing of George Floyd. As massive demonstrations took place across the county, Trump posted a message on Twitter and Facebook, warning, in part, "when the looting starts, the shooting starts." Twitter opted to issue a warning about the post, while Facebook decided to let it remain unaltered. Zuckerberg explained in a post that the company's "position is that we should enable as much expression as possible unless it will cause imminent risk of specific harms or dangers spelled out in clear policies."
"For Mark Zuckerberg or anyone else to suggest that hate speech is ok as long as it’s partisan, that’s asinine thinking," Johnson said.
Refusal to curb the spread of hate speech and misinformation on Facebook, Johnson said, threatens American governance.
"If we demean the civility of our discourse to say that if someone says something racialized, it’s ok, it’s partisan, that’s no way to run this democracy," he noted.
Republican presidential candidate Tim Scott says he is ending his 2024 bid for president in a move that surprised his donors and stunned his campaign staff.
House Speaker Mike Johnson unveiled his proposal on Saturday to avoid a partial government shutdown by extending government funding for some agencies and programs until Jan. 19 and continuing funding for others until Feb. 2.
Activists protesting corporate profits, environmental abuses, poor working conditions and the Israel-Hamas war marched in downtown San Francisco on Sunday, united in their opposition to a global trade summit that will draw President Joe Biden and leaders from nearly two dozen countries.
U.S. officials say that five U.S. servicepeople were killed when a military helicopter crashed over the eastern Mediterranean Sea during a training mission.
FBI agents seized phones and an iPad from New York City Mayor Eric Adams this week as part of an investigation into his campaign fundraising, his attorney confirmed Friday.
A man was arrested early Friday in the alleged assault of former U.S. Sen. Martha McSally, who says she was molested as she jogged along the Missouri River in Council Bluffs, Iowa.
President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping will meet Wednesday in California for talks on trade, Taiwan and managing fraught U.S.-Chinese relations in the first engagement between the leaders of the world's two biggest economies in a year.
a phrase about the space in between, “from the river to the sea,” has become a battle cry with new power to roil Jews and pro-Palestinian activists in the aftermath of Hamas' deadly rampage across southern Israel Oct. 7 and Israel's bombardment of the Gaza Strip.
