Mark Zuckerberg asks employees to stop crossing out 'Black Lives Matter' on the walls at Facebook's headquarters

Mary Altaffer/Associated Press

Gizmodo's Michael Nunez published a screenshot Thursday of a Mark Zuckerberg post to an internal Facebook group. It asks employees to stop crossing out "Black Lives Matter" on the walls of its headquarters.

Zuckerberg scolded employees for the "malicious" defacement and said the company was investigating the situation.

According to Zuckerberg's post, this sort of incident has occurred more than once.

"There have been several recent instances of people crossing out 'black lives matter' and writing 'all lives matter' on the walls at MPK," he said in the post. He later added, "This has been a deeply hurtful and tiresome experience for the black community and really the entire Facebook community."

Mary Altaffer/Associated Press

The post refers to the signature wall at Facebook's headquarters. Employees use it to write positive affirmations and other messages at work. Here's an Instagram shot of an employee writing on the wall:

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There is also at least one Black Lives Matter poster on the wall at Facebook headquarters:

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Black Lives Matter is a grassroots movement of activists responding to violence against black Americans, particularly by the police. The name gained prominence as a hashtag (#blacklivesmatter) after George Zimmerman was acquitted in the shooting of Trayvon Martin. It was later used as a chant during protests against the killing of 18-year-old Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, by a white police officer.

It has grown into the name and rallying cry of a decentralized activist movement behind many protests against police violence and other issues facing the black community in the US.

The slogan "All Lives Matter" is often used to rebut the arguments of the Black Lives Matter movement.

The most interesting part of Zuckerberg's post is his discussion of why this behavior is hurtful:

There are specific issues affecting the black community in the United States, coming from a history of oppression and racism. 'Black lives matter' doesn't mean other lives don't — it's simply asking that the black community also achieves the justice they deserve.

We've never had rules around what people can write on our walls — we expect everybody to treat each other with respect. Regardless of the content or location, crossing out something means silencing speech, or that one person's speech is more important than another's. Facebook should be a service and a community where everyone is treat with respect.

Only 2% of Facebook's employees are black, including only 1% of the company's tech workforce. The company has tried to address the issue, bringing on a director of diversity in 2013. But it appears to be an uphill battle. Zuckerberg recently had to publicly rebuff a board member who tweeted in favor of colonialism.

Facebook declined to comment for this story.

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