| Friend,
Facebook is facing a full-on advertising revolt. And it’s huge.
The company’s largest advertisers are turning their back on the social-media giant because of its repeated failures to address hate and disinformation on its platform. Honda, Unilever and Verizon are just a handful of the 100+ companies that have jumped on so far.
Facebook has shown it doesn’t care about its users. But it does care about money. 99% of Facebook’s profits come from its advertisers.
Let’s hit the company where it hurts: Demand that advertisers boycott Facebook.
Mark Zuckerberg is scared. Facebook’s stock has taken a hit this week as more and more advertisers have announced their departure from the platform. In recent days, Facebook executives have acknowledged that the company is facing a “trust deficit” with advertisers. All of this comes on the heels of several prominent staff publicly quitting over Facebook’s failures to curb violent speech.
Now we are starting to win. In a public address today, Zuckerberg announced a handful of changes1 that we have called on Facebook — with your help — to make for years. These include applying its policies against disinformation to politicians, explicitly prohibiting hate based on immigration status and banning hateful advertisements. But this is not nearly enough.
Facebook needs to enact more sweeping changes. Urge advertisers to boycott the company.
Zuckerberg stated that Facebook would apply its hate policy to ads — but he said nothing about hateful content in groups and posts. The changes mean that voter misinformation may be a bit harder to spread on Election Day, but it still will run rampant the rest of the time. And hateful posts will still be allowed if they come from someone “newsworthy” like Trump — the only difference is that they will now be labeled.
None of this will be vetted or verified — or make a dent in the problems on the largest social-media platform on the planet. Facebook has taken us down this road before. It’s made apologies in the past. It’s taken meager steps after each catastrophe its platform has played a part in. But this has to end now.
No company should advertise on a platform that allows so much hate and disinformation. Tell advertisers to boycott Facebook now.
The cracks are showing. Facebook users have had enough. Facebook employees have had enough. And now more and more of its advertisers have too.
So far, over 100 advertisers and counting — including Ben & Jerry’s, Eddie Bauer, Habitat for Humanity, The North Face, Patagonia, REI and more — have signed on to the boycott. But we need more.
Thanks for speaking out—
Heather, Candace and the rest of the Free Press team
freepress.net
1. "Zuckerberg Pledge to Fight Hate and Disinformation Falls Short Amid Growing Advertiser Boycott," Free Press, June 26, 2020
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