Disney, the biggest spender on Facebook advertising in the first half of 2020, reportedly suspended Disney Plus and Hulu ads with the social giant.
Disney has recently “drastically reduced” Facebook advertising, the Wall Street Journal reported Saturday, citing anonymous sources. Disney did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Disney’s move to cut Facebook advertising comes amid the #StopHateForProfit campaign. More than 1,000 companies have said they temporarily suspended advertising with the social media company in an attempt to force Facebook to deal more vigorously with hate speech and harassment. These include Unilever, Coca-Cola, Microsoft, Target, Starbucks, Verizon, and Acura. The initiative is led by groups including the NAACP and the Anti-Defamation League.
A Facebook representative, who was asked about the advertising pushback reported by Disney, said the company does not comment on individual advertisers. Regarding the company’s efforts to address hate speech, the spokeswoman said: “We invest billions of dollars each year to keep our community safe and to continually work with outside experts to review and update our policies. We know we have more work to do, and we will continue to work with civil rights groups, GARM [the Global Alliance for Responsible Media coalition]and other experts to develop even more tools, technology and policies to continue this fight. “
In the first six months of 2020, Disney spent $ 210 million on Facebook ads for Disney Plus in the US alone, by ad analytics firm Pathmatics, as quoted by the Journal. In addition to removing Disney Plus ads from Facebook, the media conglomerate has removed Instagram advertising for Hulu (which now controls Disney), according to the WSJ report. The report also said that other Disney divisions are “re-examining their Facebook advertising,” noting that the ads on cable networks ABC and Disney, including Freeform, “have virtually disappeared from the site.”
Facebook chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg, in a July 7 post, said the company “is firmly against hate.” But she said the boycott is not the impetus for Facebook’s decision-making: “We are making changes, not for financial reasons or pressure from advertisers, but because it is the right thing to do.”
After Black Lives Matter protests across the country following George Floyd’s police murder, Facebook has become a bigger target among critics who argue that the powerful internet company must do more to curb hate speech and the disinformation spread on their networks.
A July 8 report by independent civil rights auditors, who were recruited by Facebook to review their policies and practices, blamed company leaders for “perplexing and heartbreaking decisions Facebook has made that represent significant setbacks for civil rights ” In response to the auditors’ report, Sandberg acknowledged that “we have a long way to go.”
“As difficult as it has been to expose our shortcomings by experts, it has certainly been a really important process for our company,” Sandberg wrote in a blog post.
Meanwhile, Facebook is considering banning political ads on its platforms, according to multiple media reports. Last month, the company began allowing Facebook and Instagram users in the United States to disable political ads.
