As extremist groups continue to organize and recruit on Facebook, despite calls for the company to better moderate content on their platform, there is a growing movement to boycott Facebook advertising. This month, six civil rights groups, including the Anti-Defamation League, pushed for an ad boycott to pressure the company into taking firmer action against hate speech and disinformation, urging marketers to stop buying Facebook ads with the hashtag #stophateforprofit.
Which brands have joined the boycott?
- The North Face
- Patagonia
- REI
- Upwork
- HigherRing
- Talkspace
- Verizon
- Unilever
- Hershey’s
- Coca-Cola
- Honda
- And more
As a growing number of big-name companies are joining the ad boycott, many corporate advertisers continue to pull their marketing dollars from Facebook, challenging the idea that they need the world's largest social network more than it needs them.
How has this impacted Mark Zucherberg?
Facebook's share price dropped 8 percent after Unilever announced its boycott, making Mark Zuckerberg $7 billion poorer, and making him the fourth richest person in the world behind Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates and Louis Vuitton’s Bernard Arnault.
Facebook’s Response?
In response to the boycott, Facebook's VP of Global Marketing Solutions Carolyn Everson said that they respect any brand's decision and remain focused on working to remove hate speech and to provide critical voting information as "our conversations with marketers and civil rights organizations are about how, together, we can be a force for good."
And in her follow-up email to advertisers, Everson said, "Hate is an insidious feature of every society, and that is reflected across all platforms,” she wrote. “But we also believe in our responsibility to help change the trajectory of hate speech -- and while we know we can’t eradicate it, we will continue to do everything in our power to shatter its presence on our platform.”
Facebook also announced they would begin labelling posts that break its rules, but are deemed "newsworthy."