The world’s most popular social media network seems to have hit a wall in the form of President Trump.
Facebook, which has helped bring together the global community at the touch of a button for the past decade, now has to contend with a populist president looking put America’s interests ahead of the international community.
During the first several weeks of Trump’s presidency, Facebook signed on to an amicus brief condemning his travel ban, and CEO Mark Zuckerberg spoke out publicly against Trump’s hardline proposals and policies related to immigration and labor. Now the Menlo Park, Calif., company is taking it a step further.
In a recent internal memo, the company announced it would allow employees to take time off to join what are expected to be massive pro-immigration rallies on May 1 without being penalized, according to a Bloomberg report. While Facebook indicated that supporting its workers’ decision to express their opinions is nothing out of the ordinary, the company made it known to contractors that if they don’t protect their employees’ right to protest, ties to the vendor would be re-evaluated.
That comes as Trump is ramping up his efforts to put “America first.” Last week Trump signed an executive order to begin a review of the H-1B visa program, which allows U.S. companies to employ foreign workers for high-skilled jobs. Silicon Valley companies, which rely heavily on the visas for their workers, have pushed for an expansion of the program.
Critics complain that many of the tens of thousands of H-1B visas granted each year are exploited by tech companies looking to fill lower-level positions for less pay than would be given to U.S. workers. One senior administration official told reporters: “The result is that workers are often brought in well below market rates to replace American workers, violating the principle of the program, which is supposed to be a means for bringing in skilled labor. Instead, you’re a lot of times bringing in workers that are less skilled and lower-paid than the workers they’re replacing.”
Trump’s executive order on the H-1B visa program doesn’t change any rules yet, but it shows the president means business about breaking up the status quo. Trump aides say one goal of the administration would be to get rid of the H-1B lottery system in favor of a merit-based one.
For many CEOs in Silicon Valley, many of whom are immigrants themselves, immigration is a particularly sensitive issue — not just because it could affect their bottom line but because it strikes a personal chord. Zuckerberg has often touted that his great-grandparents were immigrants. He also co-founded FWD.us, a political advocacy group dedicated to immigrant rights.
During a speech this month at a developer conference, Zuckerberg criticized attempts to stem the tide of immigration. He spoke of the “courage” it takes to bring people together, including helping refugees fleeing conflict and immigrants looking for new opportunities, and he took a thinly veiled shot at Trump saying, “I hear fearful voices calling for building walls and distancing people they label as ‘others.'”
Not everything about Trump has been discouraging to Zuckerberg. In a January Facebook post, he said he was “concerned” about Trump’s immigration crackdown but also expressed some optimism. He said he was “glad to hear” Trump’s willingness to “work something out” for Dreamers, immigrants brought to this country at a young age by their parents.
Speeches aren’t Zuckerberg’s only way to send a message to Trump. He participated in a conference call this month along with other CEOs with the new White House Office of American Innovation, which is led by Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner. The conversation, which, according to Politico, included Kushner and another Trump adviser, Stephen Miller, focused partly on the administration’s concerns with H-1B visas being used to fill entry-level positions.
Despite all the concern over changes to the H-1B visa program and the larger immigration issue, the success of Facebook doesn’t seem to be going away soon. The company’s stock price is higher than ever, and the number of active users on the social media network is steadily approaching the 2 billion mark.
