Large corporations, including some of the world’s largest advertisers, have pulled ads from Facebook and Instagram in recent days. Unilever, one of the largest advertisers on the planet, said it would cancel its ad placements with the social media giant for the rest of 2020. The company makes Dove soap; Lipton tea and soups; Breyer’s Ice Cream; Bath gel ax; and many more known consumer products. Yesterday, the soft drink giant Coca-Cola announced that it would no longer advertise on any social site globally for at least 30 days, while on Friday night Dockers and Levi joined the boycott. Hershey’s is reducing spending on both platforms by 33%.
A Verizon Facebook ad was placed alongside an offensive anti-Semitic video posted by QAnon
These firms are trying to force change on Facebook and Instagram by having Facebook co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg sit down and take notice. By removing your ads, Facebook’s revenue will fall below expectations and this has already affected its share price. Yesterday, the shares fell 8.3%, reducing the value of the company by $ 56 billion. Zuckerberg personally took a hit of $ 7 billion, though his net worth is still $ 82.3 billion after the decline.
The upcoming elections are a major topic of offensive and hateful posts on Facebook and Instagram.
The aforementioned companies protest Facebook’s failure to remove hateful and offensive posts. For example, on Thursday, the Anti-Defamation League released an open letter noting how the ADL “found a Verizon ad that appears alongside a video by the QAnon conspiracy group based on hateful and anti-Semitic rhetoric, warning that the Federal Agency for Emergency Management (FEMA) is planning to provoke a civil war with concentration camps and coffins ready and claiming that Americans are already quarantined in militarized districts. ” The letter also states that “42 percent of daily Facebook users experienced harassment on the platform.”
The nation’s leading company spent $ 1.46 million on Facebook ads from May 22 to June 20, according to analytics company Pathmatics. Verizon spent nearly $ 407,000 on Instagram ads during the same period. Verizon Media Office Chief John Nitti said: “We have strict content policies and zero tolerance when violated, we take action. We are pausing our advertising until Facebook can create an acceptable solution that makes us comfortable and consistent with what we have done with YouTube and other partners. “
Verizon is removing its ads on Facebook and Instagram
Bloomberg reports that Zuckerberg held a live question-and-answer session with Facebook employees on Friday and announced some changes to the company’s advertising policies. During this session, Zuckerberg said Facebook will now link all voting related posts to the Facebook voting center. Additionally, all posts that violate Facebook’s rules will be flagged even though they will remain on the platform. The ADL responded by saying the changes were “small” and said: “We have been on this path before with Facebook. They have apologized in the past. They have taken meager action after each catastrophe where their platform played a major role.” This has to end now. “
the The Wall Street Journal reports today that Facebook’s vice president of global business Carolyn Everson wrote a memo to advertisers last week. Everson wrote that Facebook does not “make policy changes linked to income pressure” and that it establishes “principles-based policies rather than business interests.” She also claimed that during the six-month period ending in March, 89% of posts removed by Facebook for violating its offensive message policies were automatically made before anyone on the platform had a chance to read them. She also said, “Hate is an insidious feature of every society, and that is reflected on all platforms. But we also believe in our responsibility to help change the trajectory of hate speech, and while we know we cannot eradicate it, we will continue
Barry Lowenthal, executive director of media kitchen advertising agency, said many of his clients plan to boycott Facebook and Instagram next month. “It is the right thing to do as a good corporate citizen,” he said.
