Mark Zuckerberg Tells Facebook Staff to Stop Crossing Out ‘Black Lives Matter’

Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg chastised some Facebook employees that have been replacing the phrase “Black Lives Matter” with “All Lives Matter” on the company’s walls, telling them they have to stop.

Zuckerberg posted a private memo on a company announcement page, which Gizmodo obtained. He wrote that there have been “several recent instances” of the act, which he said he addressed last week as well. He now considers the act “malicious,” since the issue persisted after Zuckerberg expressed his disappointment. Any employee can write on the designated walls, which are meant to bring the spirit of the digital Facebook Wall into the physical world.

“This has been a deeply hurtful and tiresome experience for the black community and really the entire Facebook community, and we are now investigating the current incidents,” Zuckerberg wrote.

The post also briefly explained why “Black Lives Matter” was important. Facebook, like many Silicon Valley companies, employs mostly white males; only 2 percent of its employees were black when the company released diversity statistics in June 2015.

Facebook has taken steps to promote diversity in the workplace; last August, the company rolled out its plan for employees to take an anti-unconscious bias course as a part of its greater efforts.

[Gizmodo]