An online discussion group inside Facebook in which employees talked anonymously turned ugly and was ultimately shut down last year by CEO Mark Zuckerberg after the divisiveness of the US presidential election transformed the forum into a hub for political comments that alarmed management, according to several people familiar with the matter.
The internal group, named Facebook Anon, was created in May 2015 as a way for employees to freely share concerns and opinions about the workplace. But Facebook shut the group down in December 2016 for what Zuckerberg later described as spreading harassment.
While never pitched by management as a forum specifically for conservatives, Facebook Anon became heavily used by right-leaning employees in the months surrounding Trump’s election, several people with knowledge of the group said. Just before the election, a poster advertising the group on Facebook’s campus read "Trump Supporters Welcome."
The previously unreported incident highlights the tricky balance Silicon Valley tech companies face between protecting their employees’ rights to free speech and combatting hate speech. Source
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