Facebook Boycott: Demands & Outcomes
Would you join in on the Facebook boycott?
On June 17th, 2020, a group of civil rights organizations including the NAACP, Color of Change, and Anti-Defamation League called for businesses to “hit pause on hate” and to stop advertising on Facebook for the month of July. Boycott organizers state that “social media has allowed hate and extremism to spread faster and further than ever before, which causes real harm to real people.” They specifically called out Facebook for spreading hate speech and disinformation.
Over 800 companies worldwide joined the #StopHateForProfit Facebook boycott, pulling millions of dollars in advertising on the platform for July. Many brands and organizations feel that Facebook is not doing enough to stop hate speech and the spread of misinformation on its’ platform. Since Facebook owns Instagram, that also means discontinued ad spend on Instagram. Adidas, Clorox, Coca-Cola, CVS, Honda, HP, Microsoft, Starbucks, Target, and Verizon are a few of the hundreds of brands that joined the movement. Some brands stated they will pull their advertising dollars from Facebook for the month of July, while others indefinitely.
The boycott organizers provided steps that Facebook should take immediately which they believe would lead to results in real progress.
Those recommendations are summarized here:
- Accountability: The boycott organizers demanded Facebook to establish a permanent civil rights infrastructure. This includes hiring a C-suite level executive with civil rights expertise to evaluate current policies for discrimination, bias, and hate. This individual would also design and implement decisions for future product developments. The boycott organizers called for Facebook to submit to regular, third-party audits and allow this information to be publicly accessible. They also called for an audit and refund to advertisers whose ads were shown next to content that was later removed for violations of terms of service.
- Decency: The boycott organizers requested Facebook to “remove public and private groups focused on white supremacy, militia, antisemitism, violent conspiracies, Holocaust denialism, vaccine misinformation, and climate denialism.” In addition to removing this content, they demanded Facebook to stop recommending these groups of hate and misformation to users. Organizers requested Facebook to create an internal mechanism to automatically flag hateful content for human review and to ensure accuracy in political posts, removing misinformation relating to voting.
- Support: Boycott organizers and civil rights activists demand Facebook to create a team to review submissions of identity-based hate and harassment. Moreover, they demanded to allow individuals facing serve hate and harassment the ability to connect with a live Facebook employee.
Facebook executives met with the boycott organizers on July 7th, 2020 to discuss the progress Facebook has made. The civil rights advocates stated they were disappointed because Facebook did not provide clear answers and timelines to their recommendations. Note that the boycott organizers hoped that Facebook could agree and implement the changes requested over the next month when the demands were released in June.
Below is an update regarding Facebook’s progress so far:
- In Q4 of 2019, Facebook removed 89% of hate speech before it was even reported. That is up from about 80% from the previous quarter. In the Q1 2020, Facebook removed 97% of hate speech before users reported them — that’s a total of 4.8 million posts (Fortune).
- Facebook is working with a Big Four auditing firm to prepare an external audit of their Community Standards. Their latest report can be found here.
- Facebook made its chief diversity officer, Maxine Williams, a direct report to COO Sherly Sandberg (TechCrunch). Sandberg states this puts diversity and inclusion at the heart of everything Facebook does.
- Facebook launched a $200 million investment fund to support black-owned businesses. This is part of a broader $1.1 billion investment to minority-owned businesses.
- Facebook took down Trump’s ads for using a known hate symbol (CNN).
- Facebook launched Lift Black Voices Hub on the Facebook App to “highlight stories from black people, share educational resources, and inspire people to take action through fundraising for racial justice causes” (The Verge).
- Facebook released a blog post regarding where Facebook stands and actions the platform is taking to advance racial justice within the company and on the platform.
- Facebook released the most recent evaluation of the Code of Conduct by the European Commission.
- On June 5th, 2020, Mark Zuckerberg publically announced in a Facebook post the seven areas the company is working on to combat racial justice, content policies, and other underlying issues. The main takeaways here are that Facebook plans to review policies on state use of force, voter suppression, and actions against content in the gray zone (leave up or remove). In addition, Facebook plans to work on a more transparent decision-making process for content, internal structure to ensure diverse voices are at the table, workstreams for products to advance racial justice, and creating a voter hub to promote the voting process.
- On June 26th, 2020, Mark Zuckerberg announced additional changes as a result of feedback from the civil rights audit led by Laura Murphy. Effectively immediately were policy changes to better protect immigrants, migrants, refugees, and asylum seekers by prohibiting violent speech against these groups and banning ads suggesting these groups are inferior. Facebook will ban posts that make false claims about ICE agents checking for immigration papers at polling places. In addition, Facebook will label content they leave up because it’s deemed newsworthy but may violate their policies.
- On July 7th, 2020, Sherly Sandberg shared in a Facebook post that the company recognizes the work will never be finished to combat hate speech and disinformation. Sandberg and Zuckerberg have been meeting regularly (for the past two years) with civil liberties and civil rights activists on an ongoing audit effort. She states the company is making changes not because of revenue or advertiser reasons, but because it is the right thing to do. Sandberg concludes “We are never going to be perfect, but we care about this deeply. We will continue to listen and learn and work in the weeks, months and years ahead.”
It appears that the action steps and changes Facebook has taken are being overshadowed by the comments made by civil rights advocates during their July 7th, 2020 meeting. They are correct that Facebook did not address each action point individually, but it’s evident that the company is making strides in the right direction. Realistically, the action items recommended by the boycott organizers will take months if not years to implement, thus it is slightly unfair for them to downplay the progress Facebook has made so far.
For brands that continue to jump on the bandwagon, it’s important to understand the value of pulling advertising dollars from the platform. Many CEOs and marketing executives know that pulling spend from Facebook and Instagram will most likely hurt their business's bottom line. Millions of businesses depend on Facebook and Instagram to generate customers and revenue.
“For a lot of [direct-to-consumer] brands, Facebook is oftentimes the lifeblood of their entire sales funnel. It is, in many cases, virtually their entire sales funnel… For DTC brands, it would be the equivalent of pulling your product off the shelves of Walmart.” — CNBC.com
Analysts are confident that brands will soon return back to Facebook and Instagram. In a study from eMarketer, most Americans stated they would not have a less favorable view for a company that did not participate in the Facebook boycott. Only 8% said they would have a less favorable view for a company that did not participate.
It is imperative for civil rights activists and brands to voice the need for change, and the boycott may just accomplish this. It will be interesting to see when brands will start advertising on Facebook again, as well as which brands continue to participate in the boycott. Some additional questions to consider when thinking about Facebook boycott:
- How much progress does Facebook need to make for brands to call off the boycott?
- Are brands going by the words of the boycott organizers or using their own judgment?
- Did brands jump on the bandwagon because they really care? Or did they cut spend on Facebook to avoid negative backlash?
- How much is a brand willing to risk for the greater good?
Just because the boycott organizers are disappointed, it doesn’t mean that Facebook hasn’t done anything to improve the removal of hate speech and disinformation. Facebook recognizes there a long path ahead and changes don’t happen overnight. The company’s actions thus far should not be overlooked. Facebook has been a valuable source in connecting people, building communities, and helping businesses grow. The downplay of Facebook’s accomplishments to combat hate speech and misinformation is one that should also be discussed.
