The growing boycott by advertisers that are unhappy with social media platforms, like Facebook, handling of misinformation, and hate speech, is growing and gaining momentum. This boycott gained traction in early June when the advocacy group, Stop Hate for Profit, called for companies to suspend ads on Facebook. This boycott started with Facebook’s lazy and hands-off approach to handling President Trump’s aggressive and misleading posts. Civil rights groups, including ADL, the NAACP, Sleeping Giants, and Color of Change, are a part of the coalition that is spearheading the boycott movement. There are nearly 100 companies that have joined this boycott, with most of the participants being small businesses. Recently, several large companies, like Starbucks, Coca-Cola, etc., have joined the boycott to bring more focus onto the issue.
In the first quarter alone, Facebook recorded more than $17 billion in advertising revenues. While most of the company’s revenues come from millions of small businesses, losing big brand ads bring more light to the problem and onto Mark Zuckerberg and how he handles the situation. Zuckerberg needs to adapt Facebook so that it doesn’t take a hands-off approach to manage hate speech and violent content. Finding and removing public or private groups that are focused on white supremacy, antisemitism, violent conspiracies, militia, etc. should be a priority for Facebook. They need to ensure the accuracy of political matters by eliminating political exemptions and prohibiting calls to violence in any form. Given how vital political and voting issues are in the U.S., Facebook taking a hands-off approach and allowing exemptions in these areas is extremely dangerous.
Several companies are joining the boycott to halt advertisements on Facebook until their policies on hate speech, violent content, and misinformation change. Facebook earns an average of $70 billion in revenue a year from advertisements. Last Friday, Facebook shares dropped 8 percent as more and more companies begin to pull their ads from the platform. While Facebook has started to review its policies on handling hate speech and violence, companies continue to boycott the social media platform. Here is a list of big brand companies that have pulled their ads from Facebook:
- Starbucks spent $94.9 million last year on ads. The company is pausing advertising on all social media platforms to work with the civil rights organizations to stop the spread of hate speech.
- Hershey’s, this chocolate manufacturer, spent $36.5 million on ads and plans on cutting spending on Facebook by a third for the rest of the year.
- Verizon spent $22.9 million on ads last year and plans to pause ads until Facebook creates an acceptable solution to make people comfortable.
Other companies that are pausing ads of Facebook
- AdComplyRx
- Adventure Journal
- Arc’teryx
- Arcanist Press
- Arka Pana Consulting
- Artbees Software
- Aspen Snowmass
- Atlas Pet Company
- com
- Birchbox
- Blurry Bits Photography
- Bwritr
- CityAdvisor
- Climate Ride
- Coolidge Corner Theatre
- tool
- Dashlane
- daviesnow
- Dermatonics
- DETH KULT
- Diageo
- Dockers
- ecoRI News
- Eddie Bauer
- Edinburgh Events
- EILEEN FISHER
- Equal Entrance
- com
- Gerardo
- GIN – Greater Inflight Network
- Haven Life
- Heidi Howarth
- HigherRing
- Honda
- Houdini Sportswear
- iHerb
- Ipsun Solar
- JanSport
- Kush Queen
- Las Vegas Food and Wine Festival
- LendingClub
- Levi’s
- Lifestraw
- Limeade
- Local Postal
- Lockdowneconomy – UK
- lululemon
- Magnolia Pictures
- Manelik
- Matte PR
- MEC
- Menlo Jazzercise
- Mindful QA
- Modern Farmer
- Mozilla
- Nonbeenary Designs
- OpenWorksBmore
- Patagonia
- Patagonia Provisions
- PearBudget
- Peter Togel
- PLAZM
- Read Between the Wines Podcast BBC
- REI
- ReVision Energy
- SharperTrades
- Social Work Test Prep
- Somoto Canyon Tours
- Sortyourfuture
- Source
- SparkCharge
- Spiders and Milk
- SVB
- TalkSpace
- The Carbon Literacy Project
- The Jewish Board
- The North Face
- Thriving Design
- TrashPandasTVOfficial
- Unilever
- UNLIT® The Hangover Recovery Drink
- Upwork
- Viber
- Voicebrook
- Western Environmental Law Center
- wettribe
- wherewemet
- Willow Lane Collective
- Woven Trends
- ZoeFinancial
The boycott on social media platforms that started in early June has gained a lot of traction in a few weeks. More and more companies have joined in the effort to make platforms like Facebook accountable for allowing posts and groups about hate speech and violent content. While ads are being paused across several social media platforms, Facebook is receiving the bulk end because of its lazy and hands-off approach.
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