Facebook Inc. (full board) – Get report Shares extended declines in pre-trading on the Monday after Stabucks Corp. (SBUX) – Get report, the world’s largest coffee chain, joined a list of more than 150 companies planning to freeze advertising spending on the social media platform.
Starbucks, Coca-Cola (KO) – Get report, Diageo and Unilever are just some of the scores of global brand giants that have said they will pause spending on social media advertising during the month of July, and in some cases until the end of the year, unless companies like Facebook do so. Do more to eradicate hate speech and disinformation on your social media platforms.
“We believe in uniting communities, both in person and online, and we are against hate speech,” Starbucks said in a statement. “We believe that more must be done to create welcoming and inclusive online communities, and we believe that both business leaders and policy makers must come together to bring about real change.”
“We will pause advertising on all social media platforms as we continue internal discussions, with our media partners and with civil rights organizations in an effort to stop the spread of hate speech,” the statement added.
Facebook shares were marked 4.2% lower in premarket trades on Monday to indicate an opening bell price of $ 206.99 each. Facebook shares lost more than $ 55 billion in value on Friday after Unilever, one of the world’s largest advertising buyers, said it would freeze spending with the social media company until the end of the year.
Twitter (TWTR) – Get report Shares were marked 2.62% lower at $ 28.29 each, while parent company of Google Alphabet Inc. (GOOGL) – Get report, which owns YouTube, was little changed at $ 1,362.00 each.
Facebook, which had more than $ 70 billion in advertising revenue last year, said on Friday it would take “additional precautions” to safeguard the platform in the run-up to the US election in November, and vowed to remove false information about voting while implementing a new labeling system for “newsworthy” publications that would otherwise violate their policies.
“We will soon start tagging some of the content we left because it is considered newsworthy, so people can know when this is the case,” CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a live streamed segment of the company’s weekly meeting. “We will allow people to share this content to condemn it, just as we do with other problematic content, because this is an important part of how we discuss what is acceptable in our society … but we will add a notice to tell people that the content that Sharing may violate our policies. “
Meanwhile, the announced changes to Facebook represent yet another turnaround for founder and CEO Zuckerberg, who once dismissed allegations that his platform was used to interfere in the 2016 election as “ridiculous” before agreeing to deliver more than 3,000 ads. politicians linked to Russia. to investigators in Congress.
Zuckerberg said last month that Facebook “shouldn’t be the arbiter of the truth of everything people say online,” but admitted that “there are a number of content areas that we need to better monitor our service.”
“Without a doubt, the list of advertisers withdrawing spending from Facebook (and increasingly, all social media, often including Twitter and YouTube) for the month of July is growing,” said BMO Capital Markets analyst Daniel Salmon. . “However, with Facebook with advertisers over 8mm and many direct response advertisers willing to spend more on ad auctions when others walk away, we don’t expect the impact on revenue to be material at this stage.”
“But with the latest FB changes announced on Friday that were met with requests for more, the problem should continue to be monitored.”
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