When it comes to Facebook’s reputation, Mark Zuckerberg made what’s probably the understatement of the year during a recent company question and answer session: “We are certainly exiting the first half of the year with our brand in a tougher place than when we started the crisis.” That clip was part of a trove of leaked audio obtained by The Verge.
Zuckerberg holds weekly sessions answering employees’ most pressing concerns. Lately, their concerns have been about the election, advertiser boycotts, the coronavirus pandemic, anti-racist protests and antitrust investigations.
His employees are generally more liberal than Facebook’s 3 billion users. And Zuckerberg is caught in the middle.
“Rather than try to pick one of those sides, or steer the company one way or the other, he’s really committed himself to a kind of centrism,” says Casey Newton, Silicon Valley Editor for The Verge.
Newton has covered Facebook for years, and has a big piece out headlined “Mark in the Middle.”