Facebook & Twitter Employees Overwhelmingly Support Fact Checking Trump Tweets; Majority Support Fact Checking Political Speech on Social Media in General - Blind Survey

An overwhelming number of both Twitter and Facebook employees (76% and 78%) support Twitter's decision to add a fact check flag on Trump's recent tweet making false claims about voting. That's at least according to an anonymous survey launched last weekend by the development team of Blind, an anonymous messaging app for company staffers.

This data comes as controversy over Trump's behavior on social media has reached a fever pitch in the wake of nation-wide protests, a Trump threat of violence on Twitter (subsequently hidden by the company), and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg's refusal to remove or flag Trump's inflammatory posts from his own social network. (Which has caused some Facebook employees to stage virtual walk-outs or publicly quit with a resignation statement against Zuckerberg.)

Another question in this Blind survey may shed light on this roiling tension within Facebook:

By a slight majority of 52%, Facebook employees disagreed with the notion that social networks shouldn't fact check political speech. Twitter employees disagreed at a rate of 57%, with half as many falling into the "somewhat disagree" category.

Blind's survey was taken by just over 1500 employees of major tech and financial services companies, with staffers at Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and Facebook being the most represented.  While the data sample is small, a couple things stand out: Twitter and Facebook employee's opinions in this survey are quite close to those among other colleagues in terms of fact checking Trump tweets -- while at the same time, the social network employees are much more likely to support fact checking political statements in general. 

Here are the aggregate results across employees of all companies who took the survey:

Compare and contrast with this Blind survey from last October: Majority Of Facebook Employees Believe Policy Allowing Political Ads With False Claims May Change 2020 Election.

Much thanks to Team Blind for the data!

Comments

[Metacam]

Funny how all the Trump people who were screaming everything was a hoax against him are no where to be found. The biggest disaster in American History. Donald Judas Trump.