Facebook and Snapchat became the latest American companies to condemn the racial inequalities in the United States as violent protests erupted across the country’s cities over the death of George Floyd last week.
They joined companies such as Intel, Netflix, Google, IBM and Nike who have taken a public stance calling out discrimination against African-Americans.
Facebook and Snapchat have for years struggled to mitigate discrimination in their own workplaces and black engineers are underrepresented. The pandemic is not helping as companies are slowing hiring new people.
Facebook employees urged CEO Mark Zuckerberg to act against an inflammatory post last week by President Donald Trump about the Minneapolis protests. He instead said that he would not take action on it but would commit $10 million to organisations working on racial justice.
Snapchat CEO Evan Spiegel said in an email to employees, “We cannot end systemic racism without simultaneously creating opportunity for all people, regardless of their background.” He called for increased taxes, “to create a society that benefits us all.”
Twitter, which was at the center of a fight with Trump over its actions on his tweets, included a warning over a tweet about the protests and added #BlackLivesMatter to its account bio.
Nike turned its iconic slogan around to raise awareness about racism. The company said in a video, “For Once, Don’t Do It. Don’t pretend there’s not a problem in America. Don’t turn your back on racism.”
