The most horrifying thing to me about the Facebook story and conservatives is not that there has been one largely unsubstantiated complaint by a former employee, but that conservatives have begun acting like the professional grievance mongers of the left. The American Conservative Union actually put out a statement that they would not go to the meeting because, in part, Facebook had not written a check to subsidize CPAC. Yes, they actually claimed that.
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When the hell did conservatives start demanding private businesses set up affirmation action plans for conservatives? That’s essentially what this is.
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The behavior of some conservatives on this issue is shameful. We should start trying to figure out who the Jesse Jackson and the Al Sharpton are of the conservative movement considering many in the movement are turning into shakedown artists. And it is no coincidence that the same pool of conservative shake down artists are starting to make kissy face with Trump.
In any event, I’m glad to see Glenn Beck feels the same way.
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Instead, he brings in a bunch of conservatives and a few of them decide they have to grandstand while others even go out of their way to say they won’t go to the meeting and they won’t be pawns and Facebook needs to start spreading the wealth around to have a meaningful conversation. Like hell they do. No conservative should make affirmative action and shakedown demands on a private company. That is essentially what some have tried to do.
It’s no better than Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton.
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Parts of the conservative movement are trying to become the Jesse Jackson and Al Sharptons of the movement. https://t.co/QD2jTTUSxx
— Erick Erickson (@EWErickson) May 19, 2016
The Most Disturbing Thing About My Meeting With Mark Zuckerberg https://t.co/txRHRknvaq
— Glenn Beck (@glennbeck) May 19, 2016
….So what disturbed me about the Facebook meeting?
I sat through a meeting that, to me, felt like I was attending a Rainbow Coalition meeting, that people (not me) had come with a list of demands.
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. While at the same time admitting that Huffington Post has been struggling with the same issues. I heard people discuss community standards, pages being shut down, posts being removed — and I do believe that happens and it’s something Facebook could do better, and I hope they will — but we were not there because of that. We were there because of this ONE accusation on Trending Topics.
I sat there looking around and heard things like:
1) Facebook has a very liberal workforce. Has Facebook considered diversity in their hiring practice? The country is 2% 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.
I sat there, looking around the room at ‘our side’ wondering, ‘Who are we?’ Who am I? I want to be very clear – I am not referring to every person in the room. There were probably 25-30 people and a number of them, I believe, felt like I did. But the overall tenor, to me, felt like the Salem Witch Trial: ‘Facebook, you must admit that you are screwing us, because if not, it proves you are screwing us.’
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?
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