Facebook Denies Trying to Influence Election After Internal Question for Zuckerberg Leaks Online

Facebook denied that it would ever attempt to influence how people vote on Friday, releasing a statement after popular technology blog Gizmodo obtained a screen grab revealing employees had wondered if the social media giant had a "responsibility" to "prevent" the election of Donald Trump.

“Voting is a core value of democracy and we believe that supporting civic participation is an important contribution we can make to the community," a Facebook spokesperson said in a statement to Gizmodo. "We encourage any and all candidates, groups, and voters to use our platform to share their views on the election and debate the issues."

Founder and CEO of Facebook Mark Zuckerber speaks during the presentation of the new Samsung Galaxy S7 and Samsung Galaxy S7 edge on February 21, 2016 in Barcelona, Spain. The annual Mobile World Congress will start tomorrow February 22 hosting some of the world's largst communication companies, with many unveiling their last phones and gadgets. (Photo by David Ramos/Getty Images)

"We as a company are neutral – we have not and will not use our products in a way that attempts to influence how people vote," the statement added.

The comment from Facebook came just hours after Gizmodo published a screen grab of an internal poll where employees were voting on which questions to ask founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg. One of the questions: "What responsibility does Facebook have to help prevent President Trump in 2017?"

Gizmodo speculated that the social media platform could "gradually remove any pro-Trump stories or media off its site" which would be "devastating for a campaign that runs on memes and publicity."

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