Issues around Mr. Trump’s posts emerged when he posted on Facebook a link to a Dec. 7 campaign statement “on preventing Muslim immigration.” The 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.” Mr. Trump has since backed away from an outright ban based on religion, saying his policies would target immigrants from countries with a record of terrorism.
Users flagged the December content as hate speech, a move that triggered a review by Facebook’s community-operations team, with hundreds of employees in several offices world-wide. Some Facebook employees 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.
Content reviewers were asked by their managers not to remove the post, according to some of the people familiar. Facebook’s head of global policy management, Monika Bickert, later explained in an internal post that the company wouldn’t take down any of Mr. Trump’s posts because it strives to be impartial in the election season, according to people who saw the post.
During one of Mr. Zuckerberg’s weekly town hall meetings in late January at the company’s Menlo Park, Calif., headquarters, a Muslim employee asked how the executive could condone Mr. Trump’s comments. Mr. Zuckerberg acknowledged that Mr. Trump’s call for a ban did qualify as hate speech, but said the implications of removing them were too drastic, according to two people who attended the meeting. Mr. Zuckerberg said he backed Ms. Bickert’s call, they said.
Many employees supported the decision. “Banning a U.S. presidential candidate is not something you do lightly,” said one person familiar with the decision.
But others, including some Muslim employees at Facebook, were upset that the platform would make an exception. In Dublin, where many of Facebook’s content reviewers work, more than a dozen Muslim employees met with their managers to discuss the policy, according to another person familiar with the matter. Some created internal Facebook groups protesting the decision, while others threatened to leave.
Employees continued to submit questions for Mr. Zuckerberg’s weekly town hall about Mr. Trump’s posts for months after, the person familiar said. But the internal-communications team responded that the question had been answered and the matter was decided, the person said.
