Mark Zuckerberg has told Facebook's staff to stop defacing "Black Lives Matter" messages at the office and replacing them with "All Lives Matter".
An internal memo to employees from the company’s chief executive said altering the slogans that are written inside Facebook’s California headquarters was “unacceptable”, “disrespectful” and “malicious”.
He said there have been “several recent incidents” in which staff had crossed out the “Black Lives Matter” messages that refer to the activist movement against violence towards black people.
Facebook’s offices have several walls on which employees and visitors can scrawl, an analogue version of the “walls” on Facebook profiles.
According to the memo, revealed by the tech news website Gizmodo, Facebook is investigating the current incidents, which Zuckerberg called “a deeply hurtful and tiresome experience for the black community and really the entire Facebook community”.
“There are specific issues affecting the black community in the United States, coming from a history of oppression and racism. Black lives matter doesn’t mean other lives don’t – it’s simply asking that the black community also achieves the justice they deserve,” he wrote.
“Regardless of the content or location, crossing out something means silencing speech, or that one person’s speech is more important than another’s. Facebook should be a service and a community where everyone is treated with respect.”
2 per cent of Facebook's US employees are black according to its most recent diversity report. Zuckerberg has said the company is committed to hiring more women and minority staff, although it remains overwhelmingly white and male.
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