Facebook employees tried to remove Trump posts as hate speech

SAN FRANCISCO — Facebook employees pushed to remove some of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump's Facebook posts — such as one proposing the ban of Muslims from entering the U.S. — from the service as hate speech that violated the giant social network's policies, the Wall Street Journal reported Friday.

The decision not to remove the Trump posts was made by Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, the newspaper reported.

Employees complained that Facebook was changing the rules for Trump and some who review content on Facebook threatened to quit.

"When we review reports of content that may violate our policies, we take context into consideration. That context can include the value of political discourse," Facebook said in an emailed statement. "Many people are voicing opinions about this particular content and it has become an important part of the conversation around who the next U.S. president will be. For those reasons, we are carefully reviewing each report and surrounding context relating to this content on a case by case basis."

The Wall Street Journal said Trump's campaign did not respond to requests for comment.

Earlier this week, Zuckerberg stood by Facebook board member Peter Thiel for making a $1.25 million donation to Trump's campaign.