Facebook staff complained for years about their lobbyists’ power

Facebook says it does not take the political winds of Washington (DC) into account when deciding what posts to take down or products to launch. But a trove of internal documents shows that Facebook’s own employees are concerned that the company does just that — and that its DC-based policy office is deeply involved in these calls at a level not previously reported. According to the documents, sensitive content moderation decisions and significant changes to Facebook’s news feed and news and recommendations features undergo a review process in which public policy team members come to the table alongside other teams and weigh in with potential political concerns. In message board conversations dating back to 2019, Facebook employees took particular issue with one aspect of the company’s internal structure: The teams charged with writing and enforcing Facebook’s content rules answer to former Republican operative Joel Kaplan, the company’s vice president of global public policy. This dynamic is so prevalent that the employees argued Facebook regularly ignored its own written policies to keep political figures happy, even overriding concerns about public safety.