Twenty-nine civil rights organizations sent a letter to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg on Monday night demanding that he  and COO Sheryl Sandberg resign from the company’s board of directors following what they called years of the company “generating bigotry and hatred towards vulnerable communities.” (The Guardian)

Talking point: The letter cited the November New York Times report revealing that Facebook had hired Definers Public Affairs to discredit its critics by claiming they were agents of philanthropist George Soros, a common anti-Semitic theory. The groups wrote that Facebook had time, opportunity and expert input available to change its practices, but it instead “chose to target civil rights groups and our allies.” The organizations are also calling for the board to diversify itself by creating three more seats, to appoint an independent, permanent civil rights ombudsman and to fire Joel Kaplan, Facebook’s vice-president of global public policy. And, they want Facebook to apologize to all organizations affected by Definers and to release all documents about the PR firm. Zuckerberg has ignored calls to resign in the past, telling CNN in November that stepping down was “not the plan” for himself or for Sandberg.