More and more social media companies are joining in the protest against racial inequality in the United States. Facebook and Snapchat became the latest U.S. companies condemning racial inequality in the United States as violent protests flared up across major cities over the death of George Floyd, an unarmed black man who died while in police custody in Minneapolis last week.

The two tech companies followed Intel Corp, Netflix Inc., Alphabet’s Google, International Business Machines Corp and Nike Inc. in taking a public stance against Floyd’s death - calling out discrimination against African-Americans.

But tech companies such as Facebook and Google for years have struggled to quell concerns about discrimination against African-Americans in their own workplaces, and black engineers remain underrepresented in their workforces relative to the U.S. population.

The challenges are not expected to ease as the novel coronavirus pandemic forces the companies to slow hiring and work remotely for months to come. Facebook employees urged Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg to take stronger action against an inflammatory post last week by U.S. President Donald Trump about the Minneapolis protests. But Zuckerberg already said in a post that Facebook would not take action on the post. He said Facebook will commit $10 million to organizations working on racial justice.

 “We cannot end systemic racism without simultaneously creating opportunity for all people, regardless of their background,” Snap Chief Executive Officer Evan Spiegel told employees in an email criticizing racism and calling for increased taxes “to create a society that benefits all of us.”

 Twitter, which last week was at the center of a fight with Trump over its actions on his tweets, including a warning over one about the protests, added the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter to its account bio on the site. The US Google and YouTube homepages bore a notice saying they stood in support of racial equality.

In an internal company memo criticizing racism, Snapchat Chief Executive Officer Evan Spiegel appealed for comprehensive tax reforms in the country, with corporations paying a higher tax rate. "We cannot end systemic racism without simultaneously creating opportunity for all people, regardless of their background," he said. "In short, people like me will pay a lot more in taxes - and I believe it will be worth it to create a society that benefits all of us," he said.

Source- Reuters