AFL-CIO demands Zuckerberg personally apologize for Facebook 'unionize' censorship on Workplace app
AFL-CIO demands Zuckerberg personally apologize for Facebook 'unionize' censorship on Workplace app

By Evie Fordham FOXBusiness

Union accused Facebook of helping companies censor employees’ speech about unionizing.

Facebook’s apology following a report that it would allow business administrators to censor words like “unionize” on its office management platform is not good enough, the president of the nation’s largest union group said.

“The AFL-CIO demands that Mark Zuckerberg personally apologize to working people, pull this tool immediately and conduct a board-level investigation into how this product came into existence in the first place,” AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka wrote on Twitter on Friday.

Richard Trumka✔@RichardTrumkaReplying to @RichardTrumka

The @AFLCIO demands that Mark Zuckerberg personally apologize to working people, pull this tool immediately and conduct a board-level investigation into how this product came into existence in the first place.

Trumka also called for Facebook to “embrace global labor rights standards for all its 48,000 workers and for its contractors who employ tens of thousands more.”

“Blacklisting is illegal,” Trumka wrote. “Employers censoring their employees’ speech about unionizing is illegal. Facebook relentlessly presents itself as a champion of free speech, yet here it is marketing itself as a way for corporations to suppress the speech of their employees.”

TickerSecurityLastChangeChange %
FBFACEBOOK INC.228.58+4.15+1.85%

FOX Business’ inquiry to Facebook was not immediately returned.

Facebook backtracked after The Intercept reported on an internal Facebook presentation during which the company said there are “benefits” to “content control” on Workplace, and gave an example of censoring the word “unionize.”

This Oct. 25, 2019 file photo shows Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg speaking at the Paley Center in New York. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan)

“While these kinds of content moderation tools are useful for companies, this example should never have been used and we apologize for it,” a Facebook spokesperson previously told FOX Business. “The feature was only in early development and we’ve pulled any plans to roll it out while we think through next steps.”

Walmart, the largest employer in the U.S., uses Facebook’s Workplace platform.

NH POLITICIAN is owned and operated by USNN World News Corporation, a New Hampshire based media company specializing in the collection, publication and distribution of public opinion information, local,...