If you’ve been wondering about what’s with the Facebook Boycott, then let us tell you that Facebook faced its largest ever boycott of advertisers in July, as a coalition of some of the largest brands in America, like The North Face, Ben & Jerry and Patagonia, committed to pulling off their advertisements due to the hate speech publicity. The boycott was coordinated by the Stop Hate for Profit campaign group, which was set up in Minneapolis after the killing of George Floyd, calling on companies to “stand in solidarity with our strongest American values of freedom, equality and justice and not to publish in the services of Facebook in July.”
The entire Facebook boycott row began after “abusive” tweet from US President Donald Trump that was blocked by twitter but was left open on Facebook.
Last Monday morning, Trump’s tweet quoted, “There will never be an ‘Autonomous Zone’ in Washington, D.C., as long as I’m your President,” “If they try, they will be met with serious force!.” Later that day, Twitter blocked the tweet with the message- “This tweet violated the Twitter Rules about abusive behavior.” However, the same post remained visible on Facebook with no warning, and has gained more than 200,000 interactions from users.
Starbucks and Diageo said over the last weekend that all social media platforms will stop advertising on Facebook. Starbucks spent $95 million on Facebook advertising, with Diageo invested $23 million on this site last year. More than 160 companies joined them in this row including top international brands like Honda America, Coco-Cola, Levi Strauss, Patagonia& Unilever.
As a result of the Facebook boycott, its market value dropped by more than 8%, which is approximately $72 billion.
Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg revealed, just hours after Unilever said that it would be pushing out ads that his company would continue to mark information worthy of news that breached its policy before the US elections in November.
He also said that all posts and advertising on voting with links should be labeled for correct information.The organization admitted on Sunday that it had more to do than that, and said it was working together with human rights organizations and experts to create more tools for combating hate speech. The story is still developing as the country awaits new acceptable changes by the social media tech giant.
