How misinformation can affect Facebook employees’ morale.
How much does Facebook’s handling of misinformation affect its employees’ morale?
According to the company’s regular “Pulse” surveys, which ask employees about working for the social network, it is a factor.
Employee sentiment started off promisingly this year, according to the surveys, which were viewed by The New York Times. As Facebook responded to the coronavirus crisis and a surge in usage by simply making sure its site stayed online, employees felt driven and purposeful, the data show.
But that didn’t last for long. In May, as protests supporting the Black Lives Matter movement grew, President Trump posted a message to his Facebook page and on Twitter that said, “When the looting starts, the shooting starts.” The message was highly divisive, with civil rights groups and lawmakers saying it incited violence and calling for it to be taken down.
Twitter responded by making Mr. Trump’s tweet less visible, saying that it glorified violence and violated the site’s rules. But Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s chief executive, said it was important to his company’s ideals around free expression to keep the post up and visible on Mr. Trump’s page.
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Facebook employees did not take it well. Many spoke out internally to disagree with Mr. Zuckerberg. Morale deteriorated. According to the Pulse surveys viewed by The Times, overall favorability of the company had dropped to 69 percent by October, from 78 percent in May. BuzzFeed News previously reported on the Pulse survey data.
“Top constructive themes from comments mention decision-making related to hate speech and misinformation on our platforms, and concerns that leadership is focusing on the wrong metrics,” read a quote from the survey.
Pride in working at Facebook also dropped to 62 percent in October, down 16.6 percentage points from May and down 8.4 percentage points from a year ago, according to the data. Just over half of the respondents felt that Facebook was having a socially positive impact on the world, down 23 percentage points since May.
And perhaps worst of all for Mr. Zuckerberg, confidence in executive leadership was at 56 percent last month, down 20.3 percentage points from May and a 4.8 percentage point drop from a year ago.
“Feedback is part of our culture and we regularly check in with our employees to see where we can do better,” said Sona Iliffe-Moon, a Facebook spokeswoman, in a statement. “In this unprecedented and challenging year, the vast majority of employees report a deep belief in our mission and say they’d recommend working at Facebook to their friends.”
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She added: “Of course, there are areas where we can improve, which is why we do these surveys.”
Facebook employees were more positive about other areas, such as the way they felt about their managers. Roughly 84 percent of respondents rated their managers favorably in October, up about 1 percentage point from May and part of an upward trajectory since the second half of 2017.
But the reality of working from home also took its toll, according to the survey data. Work/life favorability dropped to 42 percent approval, a 6.2 percentage point decrease since May and an 8.1 percentage point drop from a year ago. Much like the rest of corporate America, Facebook employees reported challenges with a lack of clear boundaries between work and home.
Like many other big companies, Facebook plans to continue supporting workers as they work remotely. (That goes doubly for what Facebook calls “n00bs,” or new employees.) The company has said that it would allow many employees to work from home permanently.
One conclusion from the survey, Facebook executives wrote, was that there was a communication issue with employees. Leaders said in the survey that they would try to improve communicating the rationale behind their decisions, including by “showing that we’re learning from our mistakes.”
The executives did not address whether they would make different types of decisions.
Mike Isaac is a technology correspondent and the author of Super Pumped: The Battle for Uber, a NYT best-selling book on the dramatic rise and fall of the ride-hailing company. He regularly covers Facebook and Silicon Valley, and is based in The Times's San Francisco bureau. @MikeIsaac • Facebook
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