Deepa Seetharaman

Some of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s posts on Facebook have set off an intense debate inside the social media company over the past year, with some employees arguing certain posts about banning Muslims from entering the US should be removed for violating the site’s rules on hate speech, apparently. The decision to allow Trump’s posts went all the way to Facebook Inc. Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg, who ruled in December that it would be inappropriate to censor the candidate, apparently.

That decision has prompted employees across the company to complain on Facebook’s internal messaging service and in person to Zuckerberg and other managers that it was bending the site’s rules for Trump, and some employees who work in a group charged with reviewing content on Facebook threatened to quit, apparently. Trump’s campaign didn’t respond to requests for comment. In a statement, a Facebook spokeswoman said its reviewers consider the context of a post when assessing whether to take it down. “That context can include the value of political discourse,” she said. “Many people are voicing opinions about this particular content and it has become an important part of the conversation around who the next US president will be.” On Oct 21, senior members of Facebook’s policy team posted more details on its policy. “In the weeks ahead, we’re going to begin allowing more items that people find newsworthy, significant, or important to the public interest—even if they might otherwise violate our standards,” they wrote.