Facebook <FB.O> Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg told an all-staff meeting on Thursday that former Trump White House adviser Steve Bannon had not violated enough of the companyâs policies to justify his suspension when he urged the beheading of two senior U.S. officials, according to a recording heard by Reuters.
Zuckerberg acknowledged criticism of Facebook by President-elect Joe Biden but said the company shared some of the Biden teamâs same concerns about social media. He urged employees not to jump to conclusions about how the new administration might approach regulation of social media companies.
Bannon suggested in a video posted on Nov. 5 that FBI Director Christopher Wray and government infectious diseases expert Anthony Fauci should be beheaded, saying they had been disloyal to U.S. President Donald Trump, who last week lost his re-election bid to Biden.
âIâd put the heads on pikes. Right. Iâd put them at the two corners of the White House as a warning to federal bureaucrats. You either get with the program or you are gone,â Bannon said in the video.
Facebook removed the video but left up Bannonâs page, which has about 175,000 followers. Twitter <TWTR.N> banned Bannon last week over the same content.
âWe have specific rules around how many times you need to violate certain policies before we will deactivate your account completely,â Zuckerberg said. âWhile the offenses here, I think, came close to crossing that line, they clearly did not cross the line.â
Facebook spokesman Andy Stone said the company would take further action against Bannonâs page âif there are additional violations.â
A Bannon spokeswoman said his comments were âclearly meant metaphoricallyâ and alluded to a reference Bannon had made the day prior to the treason trial of Thomas More in Tudor England âfor rhetorical purposes.â
âMr. Bannon did not, would not and has never called for violence of any kind,â the spokeswoman, Alexandra Preate, said in a statement.
Last Friday, Facebook took down a network of other Bannon-linked pages that were pushing false claims about the presidential election, after they were flagged to the worldâs biggest social media company by activist group Avaaz.
Avaaz said seven of the largest pages had amassed nearly 2.5 million followers. Stone said Facebook had removed âseveral clusters of activity for using inauthentic behavior tactics to artificially boost how many people saw their content.â
Zuckerberg spoke on the issue at a weekly forum with Facebook employees where he is sometimes asked to defend content and policy decisions. A staff member had asked why Bannon had not been banned.
Another employee asked how Facebook was handling criticism of Facebook by Biden and members of his team. Biden told the New York Times in December last year that he had ânever been a fan of Facebookâ and considered Zuckerberg âa real problem.â
The incoming administration was ânot monolithic,â Zuckerberg said. âJust because some people might talk in a way thatâs more antagonistic to us, it doesnât necessarily mean that speaks for what the whole group or whole administration is going to stand for.â
Bannon was arrested in August and has pleaded not guilty to charges of defrauding hundreds of thousands of donors to the $25 million âWe Build the Wallâ campaign. Bannon has dismissed the charges as politically motivated.
As Trumpâs chief White House strategist, Bannon helped articulate Trumpâs âAmerica Firstâ policy. Trump fired him in August 2017, ending Bannonâs turbulent tenure.
(Reporting by Katie Paul; Additional reporting by Elizabeth Culliford; Editing by Greg Mitchell, Howard Goller and Kim Coghill)