Facebook Employees Join Group Denouncing Company's 'Political Monoculture' - Reports

MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 30th August, 2018) Employees of IT giant Facebook have created a closed group on the platform against the company's support for left-wing viewpoints and its reluctance to accept political diversity, media reported on Wednesday.

The Financial Times news outlet reported that the group, dubbed "FB'ers for Political Diversity" was created by Brian Amerige, a senior Facebook engineer.

"We Have a Problem With Political Diversity on Facebook. We are a political monoculture that's intolerant of different views. We claim to welcome all perspectives, but are quick to attack � often in mobs � anyone who presents a view that appears to be in opposition to left-leaning ideology. How do we fix this?" the group's memo reads.

According to Financial Times, citing a person close to Facebook, the group includes supporters both the left- and the right-leaning ideologies and was created to be constructive and inclusive of different political views.

The same person noted, however, that the group was "incredibly small" especially in light of the fact that tens of thousands of people work in Facebook.

There are currently 517 members in the group.

The "FB'ers for Political Diversity" group was created amid widespread criticism of Facebook, Twitter and Google over their censorship policies. The tensions reached their peak when social media accounts of Alex Jones, the founder of conspiracy theory website InfoWars were banned earlier in August.

Moreover, Facebook has been criticized by entrepreneurs who chose the platform to promote their products and content over the company's censorship and change of algorithms, which resulted in many businesses losing profits.