Facebook er blevet beskyldt for at have krænket en række internationalt anerkendte arbejdstagerrettigheder efter nyheden om, at Facebook i udviklingen af nye funktioner til ‘Facebook Workplace’ -softwaren har forsøgt at sortliste terminologi forbundet med fagforeninger.
Fredag morgen (12. juni) afslørede The Intercept, at Facebook Workplace, en chat-platform, der ligner Slack brugt til kommunikation mellem kolleger, havde været testet, så det tillader Facebook-administratorer at ‘kontrollere indhold’ kommunikeret mellem kolleger, herunder censur af visse ord , såsom udtrykket ‘unionise’.
Den europæiske fagforeningsforening (ETUC) skrev til Marisa Jimenez Martin, director of public policy and deputy head of EU affairs på Facebook med beskyldningerne om, at de amerikanske tech-giganter ønsker at undertrykke terminologi om fagforening på arbejdspladsen .
”EFS er modstander af denne praksis og vil gerne minde Facebook om, at fagforeningsbustering og andre diskriminerende aktiviteter over for fagforeninger, deres repræsentanter og arbejdere er i Europa absolut forbudt efter internationale og europæiske menneskerettighedsstandarder, som europæiske medlemslande har forpligtet sig til,” sagde brevet, set af mediet EURACTIV.
EURACTIV rapporterer:
The group, which comprises 90 national trade union confederations in 38 European countries, urged Facebook “to stop such practices immediately and give an assurance to the ETUC that the policy direction of Facebook will in future promote the fundamental human right to be able to belong and be active in your union without fear of reprisals.”
Facebook struck a conciliatory tone after what appears to have been a faux pas on their behalf.
“While these kinds of content moderation tools are useful for companies, this example was poorly chosen and should never have been used,” a Facebook spokesperson told EURACTIV.
“The feature was only in early development and we’ve pulled any plans to roll it out while we think through next steps.”
Prior to Facebook’s public admission of the blunder, several employees from the company took to social media to criticise the actions of the company in explicitly proposing that terms such as ‘unionise’ could be blocked from online chats between members of staff.
The idea of Facebook censoring speech is also likely to have come as a surprise, following the company’s decision to leave a series of posts from US President Donald Trump online, after social media rival Twitter had placed labels on some of Trump’s tweets – warning that they could be incendiary and should be fact-checked.
Despite Facebook’s commitment to erring on the side of free speech in the wider debate on regulating online content, company chief Mark Zuckerberg and wife Priscilla Chan have criticised recent comments made President Trump in a leaked email to associates of the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative.
“This is an extraordinarily painful inflection point in our nation’s story, particularly for the Black community and our Black colleagues, who have lived with the impacts of systemic racism for generations.
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