'You just have the wrong idea about Facebook': Facebook's chief AI scientist defends the company over Black Lives Matter uproar

• Facebook has faced intense criticism from its own employees and civil rights groups over its response to a post by President Donald Trump about the Minneapolis George Floyd protests.
• Facebook's chief AI scientist Yann LeCun said on Friday he is "still proud" to work for Facebook and that the social network is a "force for good in popular protest movements."
• "The Floyd murder video was published in FB [Facebook], after all," he added.

A senior Facebook AI scientist came out defending the company on Twitter, amid general employee criticism about the way it has recently handled incendiary posts.

Yann LeCun, Facebook's former head of AI research and currently the company's chief AI scientist, responded on Friday to a Twitter user who'd asked if he was still proud to work at Facebook.

"Still proud, yes. I'm trying to be a decent person. You just have the wrong idea about Facebook," LeCun responded.

He went further in defending Facebook's role in the Black Lives Matter protests, echoing a talking point by chief executive Mark Zuckerberg.

LeCun said: "Facebook is a force for good in popular protest movements. Even if the platform can also be used by people we oppose. The Floyd murder video was published in FB, after all."

Zuckerberg reportedly made a similar point during a company-wide call on June 2 to outraged employees, saying that it was important that footage of Floyd's death was posted to Facebook. Cellphone footage of George Floyd being pinned by a police officer with his knee on Floyd's neck for almost nine minutes was posted to Facebook on May 25, the same day he died, per a timeline from ABC News.

Facebook received considerable backlash after it allowed a post from Donald Trump to remain up on May 29 which incited violence against the George Floyd protesters. Trump's post included the phrase: "When the looting starts, the shooting starts."

Twitter placed the same post behind a clickthrough block, saying it violated its policy on "glorifying violence." Facebook chose to leave it untouched despite having similar guidelines.

CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a blogpost the decision to leave it up was in part because Trump referred to bringing in the National Guard, which Facebook interpreted as a warning about state action.

The decision prompted outrage both amongst Facebook's employees and among civil rights leaders, and prompted at least one senior engineer to resign in protest. Facebook employees staged a virtual walkout to express their anger last week, and this week a group of the company's content moderators published a letter condemning Facebook's "lack of adequate action" against the president's post.