He added that although he knew that many people would be upset with the company,a review of its policies backed up his decision.
"I knew that I would have to separate out my personal opinion,"he said."Knowing that when we made this decision we made,it was going to lead to a lot of people upset inside the company,and the media criticism we were going to get."
Zuckerberg held firm even as the pressure on him to take action on Trump's messages intensified. Civil rights groups said late on Monday after meeting with him and Sheryl Sandberg,Facebook's chief operating officer,that it was"totally confounding"that the company was not taking a tougher stand on Trump's belligerent posts,which have contributed to the rhetoric around the protests over police violence in recent days.
'On the wrong side of history'
And several Facebook employees have publicly resigned,with one saying the company would end up"on the wrong side of history."
Facebook's internal dissent began brewing last week after the social network's rival,Twitter,added labels to Trump's tweets that indicated the president was glorifying violence and making inaccurate statements. The same messages from Trump also appeared on Facebook. But unlike Twitter,Facebook did not touch the president's posts,including one in which Trump said of the protests in Minneapolis:"when the looting starts,the shooting starts."