Online therapy provider Talkspace has announced to end its partnership discussions with Facebook over its inability to remove or moderate a controversial post from US President Donald Trump. Talkspace CEO Oren Frank said: "We will not support a platform that incites violence, racism and lies".
"We have discontinued our partnership discussions with @Facebook today," he said late Monday. According to CNBC, the Talkspace and Facebook deal involved a partnership over content, as well as Facebook leveraging its mental health app to provide free therapy to certain audiences.
Talkspace is dealing with mental health issues during the pandemic. The Facebook deal which was in final negotiations would have netted "hundreds of thousands of dollars" for his company, said Frank. Several Facebook employees on Monday staged a "virtual walkout" protesting against the social networking giant's policies regarding the recent controversial post by Trump on its platform.
The employees took to Twitter, publicly announcing their solidarity with #BlackLivesMatter protests that have seized the nation since the death of African-American George Floyd by a white police officer on May 25. While Twitter last week put out a "public interest notice" on the tweet for violating the platform's policies about glorifying violence, Facebook refused to take action when the tweet was cross-posted to its platform.
"I believe Trump's 'when the looting starts, the shooting starts' tweet (cross-posted to FB), encourages extra-judicial violence and stokes racism. Respect to @Twitter's integrity team for making the enforcement call," David Gillis, Director, Product Design at Facebook, said in a tweet.
"I work at Facebook and I am not proud of how we're showing up. The majority of coworkers I've spoken to feel the same way. We are making our voice heard," added Jason Toff, Director of Product Management at Facebook.
