While initially pitched in 2015 as a way for employees to voice their concerns, the nature of the group became more political around last year's election. A poster advertising the group on Facebook's campus ahead of the election read "Trump Supporters Welcome."

The group was abruptly shut down by Facebook in December 2016. CEO Mark Zuckerberg later told employees that the group had been used to harass others.

An online discussion group inside Facebook in which employees talked anonymously turned ugly and was ultimately shut down last year by CEO Mark Zuckerberg after the divisiveness of the US presidential election transformed the forum into a hub for political comments that alarmed management, according to several people familiar with the matter.

The internal group, named Facebook Anon, was created in May 2015 as a way for employees to freely share concerns and opinions about the workplace. But Facebook shut the group down in December 2016 for what Zuckerberg later described as spreading harassment.