Glenn Beck said a Wednedsay meeting between Facebook’s top brass and members of the right-leaning commentariat was deeply disturbing, because conservatives adopted the tactics of the left to make demands of the social media giant.
“I sat through a meeting that, to me, felt like I was attending a Rainbow Coalition meeting,” he wrote in a blog post Thursday, referring to the activist group founded in 1996 by Jesse Jackson.
According to Beck, demands made during the meeting included:
1) Facebook has a very liberal workforce. Has Facebook considered diversity in their hiring practice? The country is 2 percent Mormon. Maybe Facebook’s company should better reflect that reality.
2) Maybe Facebook should consider a six-month training program to help their biased and liberal workforce understand and respect conservative opinions and values.
3) We need to see strong and specific steps to right this wrong.
“It was like affirmative action for conservatives. When did conservatives start demanding quotas AND diversity training AND less people from Ivy League Colleges?” Beck asked.
The meeting, which reportedly included about 20-35 people, was put together after the tech news site Gizmodo published a report this month alleging Facebook staffers intentionally exclude articles from conservative outlets from the “trending” news section.
The Washington Examiner was named as one of the news websites Facebook employees routinely block.
Meeting attendees included CNN contributor S.E. Cupp, Beck, Fox News’ Dana Perino, Heritage Foundation President and former South Carolina Senator Jim DeMint, and Daily Caller founder Tucker Carlson.
Though Beck said he attended the meeting concerned that Facebook has used its considerable influence to squash right-leaning views, he signaled Thursday that he is equally concerned that conservatives came to the discussion with a list of demands for CEOs Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg.
Beck wrote that the two tech CEOs seemed reasonable and open.
Beck also stressed that there’s no actual proof of wrongdoing on Facebook’s part. Even if there were, he added, it’s likely the work of a few “bad actors,” as opposed to being a companywide policy written by Zuckerberg himself.
“I looked around the room, I heard the complaints, I listened to the perspectives, and not a single person in the room shared evidence of any wrongdoing. Maybe they had some, but it wasn’t shared. They discussed how Facebook’s organic reach and changes in algorithms has impacted their business,” Beck wrote.
Conservatives conducted themselves in such a way during the meeting that it, “felt like the Salem Witch Trial,” Beck added.
Silicon Valley is so energetic, and exciting and full of people who want to “innovate and disrupt,” that the tenor of the Facebook meeting seemed uncalled for and unseemly.
“What happened to us? When did we become them? When did we become the people who demand the Oscars add black actors based on race?” Beck asked.
“Maybe one day, maybe one day soon, I will be able to synthesize these two opposite perspectives. Maybe one party will show solid evidence or a smoking gun. But until then, based on our research and my personal experience with Facebook, I believe they are acting in good faith and share some very deep, fundamental principles with people who believe in the principles of liberty and freedom of speech,” he concluded.
