SodaStream has become the first Israeli company to join the growing protest against Facebook’s hate speech policies, along with a growing list of brands that have vowed not to advertise on the social media platform.
SodaStream, the maker of seltzer machines for the home, joined parent company PepsiCo Inc. over the weekend in announcing they would suspend advertising on Facebook, news site Ynet reported.
SodaStream, founded in 1991, manufactures and sells seltzer machines for home use. Machines one and a half feet high convert still water to mineral water in 30 seconds. Its 3,500 employees produce around 500,000 devices per month, which are sold in 46 countries around the world.
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Pepsi bought Sodastream, which had often been the target of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel, for $ 3.2 billion in 2018.
On Monday, Starbucks became the last major corporation to join the boycott, following the lead of Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Hershey, and nearly 100 other companies. The Anti-Defamation League, NAACP, and several other civil rights groups announced the boycott on June 17, asking companies to stop their Facebook advertising during the month of July.
For years, we have urged Facebook to stop the spread of disinformation and make its platforms safe from hate. This is why we are asking advertisers to join us, @NAACP, @CommonSense and others. Pause your spending in July and tell FB that #StopHateforProfit. https://t.co/Gn3HJcBJ1p https://t.co/VuZemMpm1b
– Jonathan Greenblatt (@JGreenblattADL) June 17, 2020
Other Israeli companies have so far been silent on the matter.
Protesting the company’s unwillingness to monitor hate speech or monitor posts for misinformation, the campaign points to CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s repeated refusal to moderate posts due to incorrect information, even when extremists have used the platform. to incite violence.
Facebook gets almost its $ 70 billion in annual revenue through advertising, and the boycott appears to have hurt its results. The company’s shares, listed as FB on the Nasdaq market, have fallen 8% in recent days through Monday morning.
The list of companies has continued to grow despite Zuckerberg’s attempt to address the complaints.
On Friday, Facebook announced that it would place warnings on posts that violate its rules regarding hate or misinformation, but is still considered newsworthy. It will also ban a wider variety of hateful posts, according to NPR, and post links to “authoritative information” in voting-related posts.
But boycott organizers demand much broader changes in the way Facebook monitors, responds, and reports posts. ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt tweeted Friday that Facebook’s new policies amount to “small changes that don’t adequately address hate and misinformation.”
