Facebook advertising boycott update
How the business world joined forces to stop hate speech and disinformation.
For justice not for profit. The business world is coming together in the advertising boycott against the Facebook ad platform, to stop the proliferation of hate speech and act against disinformation being spread.
Why is this happening?
Facebook has recently bounced from one controversy to the other, with little impact on the company’s overall business. But recently, this drastically changed.
A coalition of civil rights groups ADL, the NAACP, Sleeping Giants, Color Of Change, Free Press and Common Sense, have joined forces in the STOP HATE FOR PROFIT campaign. They called on all global corporations “to stand in solidarity with [the] most deeply held American values of freedom, equality and justice and not advertise on Facebook’s services in July”.
And the answer came sooner than expected. Big names have already joined the movement and the impact is -to say the least- significant. Facebook shares dropped more than 10% over the course of 1 week.
Some of the companies that joined the movement are:
Coca-Cola
Diageo
Unilever
Levi’s
Patagonia
The North Face
Honda
Verizon
JanSport
BirchBox
Upwork
According to Pathmatics data published in Financial Times, “Verizon spent an estimated $850,000 in advertising on Facebook in the US in the first three weeks of June, while Unilever spent just over $504,000 in the same period”.
If the boycott will catch roots, imagine the impact it will have on the ad industry as a whole.
Facebook is brought to justice for the following (you can read about the full #stophateforprofit campaign here):
They allowed incitement to violence against protesters fighting for racial justice in America in the wake of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Tony McDade, Ahmaud Arbery, Rayshard Brooks and so many others.
They named Breitbart News a “trusted news source” and made The Daily Caller a “fact-checker” despite both publications having records of working with known white nationalists.
They turned a blind eye to blatant voter suppression on their platform.
As a response, Mark Zuckerberg shared an update saying: “I committed to reviewing our policies ahead of the 2020 elections” and “we’re expanding our ads policy to prohibit claims that people from a specific race, ethnicity, national origin, religious affiliation, caste, sexual orientation, gender identity or immigration status are a threat to the physical safety, health or survival of others. We’re also expanding our policies to better protect immigrants, migrants, refugees and asylum seekers from ads suggesting these groups are inferior or expressing contempt, dismissal or disgust directed at them.
Additionally, Zuckerberg mentioned that Facebook will start labelling newsworthy content. He says “if we determine that content may lead to violence or deprive people of their right to vote, we will take that content down.” Common sense goes a long way if we think about what exactly “newsworthy” means in this case, so let’s see what “we determine” actually results in.
Now the big question for advertisers is: where do I move my advertising budgets? We will see a spike in ad spend on different new media platforms like display, other social platforms and in-app, and traditional media channels like radio, television, print, and billboards.
It is hard to say how the medium to long-term future will actually look like, but for now, let’s keep a close eye on the month of July.
