Hundreds of Facebook employees are blasting a top executive’s decision to back Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, The Wall Street Journal is reporting.
Their outrage followed an appearance by Joel Kaplan, vice president of global public policy, at Kavanaugh’s recent hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee.
The angry employees raised questions to Facebook’s Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg and commented in an internal Facebook forum. Now, Zuckerberg is planning to hold a town hall meeting on Friday in an attempt to deal with employees’ concerns.
“This fire has been burning for a full week now,” said one employee.
Kaplan is a close friend of Kavanaugh’s and was even at the White House when President Donald Trump nominated the judge to the high court, the Journal said.
But those furious with his decision to back Kavanaugh, say Facebook officials have discouraged employees for expressing overt political commentary. Women employees maintained Kaplan’s appearance sends the wrong message to female workers about how the social media giant executives view sexual assault claims.
Kaplan has apologized for surprising employees by appearing at the hearing, but not for supporting his longtime friend.
Zuckerberg has noted Kaplan’s close friendship with Kavanaugh and has pointed out the two men were in one another’s weddings.
The New York Times said the company has been accused in the past about being biased against conservative websites and opinions and has maintained it is politically neutral.
But Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg, writing in Facebook’s internal forum, said: “I’ve talked to Joel about why I think it was a mistake for him to attend given his role in the company.”
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