Williams explained in her note that “prayers for…” in any place where there is war may be removed, but prayers for those affected by a natural disaster, for example, may remain.” She continued: “We know people may disagree with this approach, but it is one of the compromises we have made to ensure that we maintain a productive place for all.”
Pain and suffering
Meanwhile, Arab and Muslim employees expressed disappointment that Meta’s World Refugee Week celebrations last month included talks on projects on human rights and refugee experiences, and lunches featuring Ukrainian and Syrian dishes, but no mention of the Palestinians. (WIRED reviewed the internal schedule for the week.)
They were similarly concerned that the Meta Supervisory Board, which advises on content policy, he wrote in Hebrew but not in Arabicfor public comment on the Palestinian expression of human rights “from the river to the sea,” including whether it is anti-Semitic. A spokesman for the Oversight Board did not respond to a request for comment.
Employees also remain frustrated that Meta has not complied with their demands in December to remove the Instagram accounts of anti-hate organizations such as Canary Mission AND StopAnti-Semitism which embarrassed Palestinian supporters by allegedly violating platform rules against bullying. PWG leaders met with Meta executives, including Nick Clegg, the global president, who promised to maintain a dialogue with employees. But the accounts remain energetic, with Canary Mission and StopAntisemitism each gaining about 15,000 followers since making their demands.
Workers who recently took this as a sign of the hard struggle they face, photographer on Instagram, in which Nicola Mendelsohn, head of Meta’s Global Business Group, poses next to Liora Rez, founder and executive director of StopAntisemitism. Rez tells WIRED that her group doesn’t hesitate to call out people for anti-Semitic views and warn their employers, but declined to comment further. Canary Mission says in an unsigned statement that “there must be accountability” for anti-Semitism.
The disputes over Meta’s response to the Gaza discussions had cascading effects. In May, Meta’s internal community team shut down some planned Memorial Day celebrations to honor the company’s military veterans. An employee asked for clarification on an internal forum with more than 11,000 members, prompting a response from Meta’s CTO, Andrew Bosworth, who wrote that the polarizing discussions about “regions or territories that are not recognized” required, in part, a reconsideration of planning and oversight of all activities.
While honoring veterans was “apolitical,” Bosworth wrote in the post, seen by WIRED, CEE’s policies had to be applied consistently to survive under labor law. “There are groups that are eager to find an excuse to undermine our company’s policies,” he wrote.
Some Arab and Muslim workers took Bosworth’s comments as a reference to them. “I don’t want to work anywhere that actively discriminates against my community,” says one Meta employee who is about ready to leave. “It drives me crazy that I work for this company.”
Meta hasn’t let up on CEE enforcement in recent weeks. Employees are still barred from holding internal vigils. As a result, they’ve planned to gather near the company’s offices in Fresh York and San Francisco this evening to honor colleagues who lost family in Gaza to the war, according to the Meta4employees Instagram account and two sources. They’re curious to see how the company is trying, if at all, to contain the memorial, to which the public has been invited.
Ashraf Zeitoon, who was Facebook’s head of Middle East and North Africa policy from 2014 to 2017 and still mentors many Arab employees at Meta, says discontent among those employees has grown rapidly. He used to urge long-time employees to leave when they were frustrated; now he has to convince modern hires to stay long enough to give the company a chance to grow.
The “unprecedented level” of restrictions and enforcement has been “extremely painful and distressing,” Zeitoon says. The emotions that Meta sought to avoid by keeping talk of war out of the workplace seem not to be so easily quelled.