Facebook staff told not to wear branded clothing after Trump suspension

A memo posted on Facebook's internal messaging system advised employees against wearing branded clothing

Facebook has told staff not to wear company-branded clothing, fearing the threat of physical attacks on staff after the social network suspended Donald Trump.

A memo shared on Facebook’s internal messaging system, first reported by the Information, warned workers: “In light of recent events, and to err on the side of caution, global security is encouraging everyone to avoid wearing or carrying Facebook-branded items at this time.”

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg last week made the decision to suspend the accounts of Mr Trump and his family "indefinitely", following the president’s encouragement of  protests which resulted in a deadly siege of the capitol. Twitter also permanently suspended Trump for inciting violence.

The digital exiling was opposed by German chancellor Angela Merkel and France’s Junior Minister for European Affairs Clement Beaune who condemned the companies’ action this week and has sparked a lively debate over free speech. 

Social networks and forums which have become popular among Trump supporters, such as Parler, Gab and thedonald.win, have been filled with calls to boycott Twitter and Facebook for “silencing” Trump.

Google and Apple have also been criticised for banning Parler from its app stores over the social network’s failure to police its users’ content. 

This coupled with warnings from law enforcement that the country should be on high alert for a repeat of Wednesday’s riots has caused executives to fear that this anger will spill over into physical violence against its workers. The Federal Bureau of Investigation has warned of possible armed protestors at all 50 state capitals between the 17 to the 20 January, the day of Joe Biden’s inauguration. 

Dozens of police in San Francisco were stationed outside Twitter’s headquarters on Monday, after Trump supporters on thedonald.win discussed organising a demonstration. 

However the only demonstrator to show up was an anti-Trump protestor who stood outside the building holding a sign that read: “COUNTER TRUMP’S COUP ATTEMPTS”.  

Yoel Roth, Twitter’s head of site integrity was subjected to days of relentless harassing messages from Trump supporters in May last year, after White House adviser Kellyanne Conway told Trump fans to "wake him up" after his involvement to add a fact check label to one of his tweets for the first time.