Leadership Lost: What Facebook Missed In Its Civil Rights Audit

“We left the meeting with the exact same thing we started with,” Derrick Johnson says. “And that was nothing.” In an interview from his home office, the President of the NAACP shared his frustration surrounding a recent conversation between Facebook and a number of civil rights leaders. On Thursday, auditors provided an 89-page dissertation on the company’s lack of real progress around civil rights, voter suppression, white supremacy and white nationalism. The report reflects two years of investigation by Laura Murphy and the civil rights law firm, Relman Colfax. “What has become increasingly clear,” Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg writes in her introduction to the report, “is that we have a long way to go.” Advertisers are leaving the platform in droves, as part of the #StopHateForProfit campaign. Why can’t Facebook respond with the kind of 21st century leadership that provides a safe and racially sensitive online environment? Three components of leadership could help the company to break the chain of hate.

1. Integrity: Leadership is built on integrity. Integrity means doing what’s right even when no one is looking. Allowing white supremacist groups like Boogaloo to flourish on its platform while providing algorithmic recommendations that point to hate speech is creating a challenge for Facebook’s advertisers, US government leaders and a concerned customer base. And raising serious questions about the integrity of the online platform. Johnson explains it this way, “I’m a proponent of free speech. But there are limitations, especially when it comes to the safety of others.” Johnson reminds me that Steven Carillo, the US Air Force sergeant who allegedly murdered federal law enforcement officers in California during protests in June, was associated with the Boogaloo movement - a white supremacist organization that found a thriving outlet on Facebook. Boogaloo has been characterized as a violent extremist group that hopes to incite a second Civil War. Facebook has banned all content associated with the group, going forward. While removal of these accounts is definitely a step in the right direction, Johnson notes that it’s reactive, not proactive. Is the tech company addressing things only after they go wrong? Johnson weighs in against what he calls a danger to our democracy. “Not only do they treat hate speech like a customer service issue, they put it in a partisan frame, as opposed to realizing that these posts could incite harm,” he says.
2. Commitment. In a recent letter to Facebook, three US Senators cite Facebook’s failure to “rid itself of white supremacist and other extremist content,” despite its stated commitment to racial justice and combating hate speech. The #StopHateForProfit movement advocates for change in the company’s policies. Johnson says the company’s corporate culture, “has not been sensitive to dealing with racial hate groups and addressing those issues in ways that keep people safe.” While the civil rights audit shows some progress (most of it focused on internal processes within the company), few are satisfied with the overall results. Leadership means a full commitment to actions that go beyond words. Is that what’s happening here? “We set our policies based on principles rather than business interests,” Carolyn Everson, vice president of Facebook’s Global Business Group tells the Wall Street Journal. “We do not make policy decisions based on revenue pressure.” Does that mean that they will commit fully to throttling back on hate speech, before it shows up online? Or does the statement mean that they are not going to be pressured into doing anything the company doesn’t want to do? Progress is being made at the tech giant, but is the commitment enough to quiet the growing dissatisfaction over the company’s approach to hate speech, racial unrest and misinformation?
3. Accountability: With over 2 billion members, Facebook is larger than China. Founder, CEO and Chairman of the Board, Mark Zuckerberg, owns about 10% of the company but controls 60% of the voting shares. “Good corporate governance is a set of checks and balances”: that’s a quote from a recent Facebook shareholder proposal, according to the Guardian. But who checks Zuckerberg’s balance, other than his accounting team? Leaders understand the need for accountability, and transparency. Will recent events create more of both at the social network? If the company has to vote on it, one voter reigns supreme. Is that the kind of accountability that’s in the public’s best interest?

“We’re not asking for anything unreasonable,” Derrick Johnson explains in an even tone. What does he want, exactly? “Making sure that this platform, that now operates like a public utility without any competitors in this space, is keeping people safe.” He boils it down into a simple request: protect our democracy. How’s that going to happen? It’s really a question of leadership.