Beautiful Virgin Islands

Wednesday, Feb 25, 2026

Civil rights leaders say they're 'disappointed and stunned' after call with Facebook's Zuckerberg and Sandberg

The leaders said Zuckerberg gave "incomprehensible explanations" for not taking action against President Trump's "looting ... shooting" post.
Civil rights leaders who spoke with Mark Zuckerberg said they are shocked by the Facebook CEO’s refusal to take action against an incendiary post by President Donald Trump that Twitter obscured with a warning label.

Leaders of three civil rights groups — Color of Change, The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights and the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund — released the statement after a Monday night Zoom call with Zuckerberg and COO Sheryl Sandberg.

“We are disappointed and stunned by Mark’s incomprehensible explanations for allowing the Trump posts to remain up,” wrote the leaders, Rashad Robinson of Color of Change, Vanita Gupta of the Leadership Conference and Sherrilyn Ifill of LDF. “He did not demonstrate understanding of historic or modern-day voter suppression and he refuses to acknowledge how Facebook is facilitating Trump’s call for violence against protesters. Mark is setting a very dangerous precedent for other voices who would say similar harmful things on Facebook.”

In posts on Twitter and Facebook on Friday, Trump addressed protests over the killing of George Floyd while in police custody, saying, “Any difficulty and we will assume control but, when the looting starts, the shooting starts.” While Twitter flagged the tweet with a warning that it violates the company’s rules about “glorifying violence,” Facebook took no action.

Trump and Zuckerberg had a productive call on Friday, people on both sides of the matter told Axios. CNBC confirmed the call. In a Facebook post that day, Zuckerberg said he personally has “a visceral negative reaction to this kind of divisive and inflammatory rhetoric” but defended the decision to maintain

Trump denied he intended to incite violence.

On Monday, hundreds of Facebook employees took part in a “virtual walkout” in a rare show of opposition within the company. The employees shared on Twitter that they were ashamed and upset by Zuckerberg’s decision to leave Trump’s post untouched.

“We’re grateful that leaders in the civil rights community took the time to share candid, honest feedback with Mark and Sheryl. It is an important moment to listen, and we look forward to continuing these conversations,” a Facebook spokesperson said in a statement.

In an interview on CNBC’s “Squawk Alley,” Robinson of Color of Change said Monday’s call was not the first time he has engaged directly with Facebook, saying he’s communicated with the company of the years and even had dinner at Zuckerberg’s house. He accused the company of failing to abide by the policies it has created.

“I think it’s important for those who are watching to know that this is not some knee-jerk reaction in the middle of a crisis, this is a representation of work that we had thought we had done together and then when the crisis hits, some of the things that we had achieved, some of the policies that we had moved, have been thrown out the window,” Robinson said. “Mark Zuckerberg talked to Donald Trump right before he decided not to actually remove the content from Facebook’s platforms that Donald Trump had put out around shooting protesters. He didn’t call civil rights leaders on the other side and have conversations about the civil rights implication. When we’ve had conversations about voting rights and discrimination, what becomes clear a couple of steps in is that Mark Zuckerberg probably knows as much about civil rights and about voter suppression as I know about the sort of deep intricacies of coding and building the sort of technological backend of a social media platform.”

Facebook declined further comment further on Robinson’s remarks.

This is not the first time Facebook has been criticized for its approach to civil rights issues. At a congressional hearing last year, Rep. Joyce Beatty, D-Ohio, chair of the Financial Services Diversity and Inclusion Subcommittee, grilled Zuckerberg on Facebook’s record on diversity and civil rights. Beatty told Zuckerberg at the time, “It’s almost like you think this is a joke when you have ruined the lives of many people, discriminated against them.”

Facebook was charged last year by the Department of Housing and Urban Development with “discrimination” in its housing advertising practices after settling a lawsuit with the ACLU over the issue. HUD argued in a complaint that the platform’s design allowed for housing and services ads to be shown in a biased way. As part of its settlement with the ACLU, Facebook agreed to overhaul its advertising targeting for housing, credit and employment.

A former employee wrote in a public memo in 2018 that Facebook has “a black people problem.” The employee, Mark Luckie, who is black, said Facebook’s employees are not as diverse as its user base and described instances of racial discrimination within the company. A spokesperson at the time said Facebook has “been working diligently to increase the range of perspectives among those who build our products and serve the people who use them throughout the world.”

According to Facebook’s latest available diversity report from July 2019, 44.2% of roles in the U.S. in 2019 were held by people who identified as white and only 3.8% were held by people who identified as black. In senior leadership positions, 65.4% of roles were held by people who identified as white and 3.1% by people who identified as black.
Newsletter

Related Articles

Beautiful Virgin Islands
0:00
0:00
Close
Lord Mandelson Condemns Arrest as Driven by ‘Baseless Suggestion’ He Would Flee Abroad
Former UK Ambassador Released on Bail Following Arrest in Epstein-Linked Investigation
UK Parliament Orders Release of Former Prince Andrew’s Government Vetting Files
Reddit Fined £14 Million by UK Regulator Over Failures in Age Verification Controls
UK Moves to Tighten Regulation of Netflix, Disney+ and Prime Video Under New Media Rules
British Woman Who Reported Rape in Hong Kong Faces Possible Prosecution
UK Sanctions New Zealand Insurer Maritime Mutual Following Allegations Over Russian Oil Cover
Reform MP Danny Kruger Condemns UK’s ‘Unregulated Sexual Economy’ in Call for Tougher Controls
UK Sanctions Russian ‘Illicit Oil Traders’ After Email Blunder Exposes Sanctions Evasion Network
Russia Amplifies Baseless Claims That UK and France Plan to Arm Ukraine with Nuclear Weapons
UK Imposes Sanctions on Two Georgian Television Channels Over Alleged Russian Disinformation
United States National Parks See Noticeable Drop in Visitors from Canada, U.K. and Australia
UK, Australia, Canada and New Zealand Escalate Sanctions on Russia as Ukraine War Marks Four Years
UK Economy Faces Acute Strain as Trump’s Global Tariff Reshapes Trade Landscape
UK Signals Retaliation Is Possible as New US Tariff Policy Threatens Trade Stability
British Police Arrest Former Ambassador Peter Mandelson in Epstein-Related Misconduct Probe
Australia Officially Supports Proposal to Remove Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor from Royal Succession
Diverging Polls Show Mixed Signals on UK Economic Revival as Confidence Remains Fragile
Spotify Expands AI-Driven ‘Prompted Playlists’ Feature to the United Kingdom and Other Markets
Greens and Reform UK Surge in Manchester By-Election, Threatening Labour’s Historic Stronghold
UK Businesses Push for Closer European Trade Links Amid Renewed US Tariff Uncertainty
Deloitte Global Overhaul Sparks Leadership Contest in the United Kingdom
University of Kentucky and Microsoft to Showcase Campus-Wide AI Innovation
UK Food System Faces Acute Vulnerability to Shocks, Experts Warn
Reform UK’s Proposed ICE-Style Deportation Scheme Triggers Sharp Backlash
U.S. Global Tariff Push Leaves Britain, Australia and Others Facing Higher Costs and Trade Strain
UK Police Officers Guarded 2010 Epstein Dinner Attended by Prince Andrew, Reports Say
US Trade Representative Affirms Commitment to Existing Tariff Agreements with UK and Other Partners
Activists at the Louvre hung a framed Reuters photograph of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor slumped in the back of a car leaving a police station on the day of his arrest
Metropolitan Police Deploys Palantir-Powered AI to Flag Potential Officer Misconduct
UK Parliament Rebukes Police Over Ban on Israeli Football Fans
Britain Emerges Among a Small Group of Nations Without a Religious Majority
UK’s Manufacturing Base at Risk as Soaring Energy Costs Weigh on Industry
Matt Goodwin’s Unconventional Campaign for Reform UK in the Gorton and Denton By-Election
US Military Movements in the UK Spark Speculation Over Preparations Related to Iran Tensions
UK Faces Significant Economic Risk From Trump’s New Global Tariff Regime
UK Defence Secretary Signals Intent to Deploy British Troops to Ukraine
UK Students Mark Lunar New Year as Universities Adjust to New Equality Compliance Rules
UK Government Weighs Removing Prince Andrew from Line of Succession After Arrest
Prince Andrew’s Arrest in UK Rekindles Scrutiny Over US Handling of Epstein Records
Trump’s Strategic Warning to UK Over Chagos Islands Deal Sparks Diplomatic Whiplash
Starmer Government Postpones Local Elections Affecting 4.5 Million Voters
UK Economy Remains Fragile Despite Recent Upturn in Headline Indicators
UK Businesses Face Fresh Uncertainty Following US Tariff Ruling
Reform UK’s Senior Figures Face Scrutiny Over Remarks on Women and Family Policy
UK Electric Vehicle Drive Threatened by Shortage of 44,000 Qualified Technicians
University of Kentucky Trustees Advance Academic Reforms and Approve Coliseum Plaza Purchase
Boris Johnson Calls for Immediate Deployment of UK Troops to Support Ukraine
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman praises the rapid progress of Chinese tech companies.
North Korea's capital experiences a significant construction boom with the development of a new city district dubbed 'Pyonghattan'.
×