‘Stop Hate for Profit’: why companies are planning to boycott Facebook ads
Week 27 (June 28- July 04)
Over the past year, Facebook’s name has been on and off in the news, facing criticism for its projection of misinformation and hate speech to its audience.
As conversations around misinformation and racism took pace across the globe, Facebook has been facing criticism from its own employees as well.
Therefore, six Civil rights groups — including the NAACP and Anti-Defamation League — launched the ‘Stop Hate for Profit’ campaign on June 17. The campaign urged large companies to halt advertising with Facebook since there has been hardly any change in company’s policies to check the hateful and false information and posts.
The campaign says, “Your profits will never be worth promoting hate, bigotry, racism, Antisemitism, and violence.”
Huge brands like Coca-Cola, Hershey and Honda have come up in the support. A number of brands are also planning to pull up ads from both Facebook and Facebook owned platform-Instagram utmost by the end of July.
Facebook has also seen a tumble in the stock price last week, as its ever big advertisers Starbucks and Diageo: with $95 million and $23 million spent on the platform last year joined the list. Losing big brand ads is painful, but the bulk of the company’s sales come from millions of smaller businesses that rely heavily on the platform.
As the number of brands has almost reached 90, Facebook, on the other hand has started to take measures and has decided to flag controversial content still existing on the platform and has also stated to ban ads that describe different groups, based on descriptors such as race or immigration status, as a threat. It will also remove content — even from a politician — if it determines that it incites violence or suppresses voting.
Also read : Government of India Bans 59 Chinese Apps (week 27: June 28- July 04)
