Dozens of companies join ad boycott against Facebook

Dozens of companies have stopped advertising on Facebook. Microsoft, Unilever, Coca Cola and Starbucks, among others, no longer give money to the social network, because they believe that Facebook is doing too little to fight hate and disinformation.

At least 160 companies are said to have launched an advertising boycott against Facebook. These are the most recent figures that the Stop Hate For Profit foundation keeps track of. The foundation was set up last week to call on advertisers to stop using paid Facebook ads. This happened in response to the site’s policy.

Among the companies are several large advertisers. For example, Starbucks spends more than 90 million euros and Microsoft more than 100 million. Microsoft says it doesn’t want to be associated with “hate speech, pornography and terrorist content,” though the company is wary of returning to advertising after the summer. It only does that if Facebook takes steps.

Not all advertisers support the official boycott; different companies stop advertising for various reasons. For example, Unilever says it will temporarily stop “due to the current polarization and the elections in the US”. “Continuing to advertise on these platforms brings no value to people and society,” a spokesperson told the Wall Street Journal.

Given Facebook’s total revenue, the ad boycott will not be very effective yet. Facebook had a turnover of more than $70 billion last year. The vast majority came from advertisers, but the majority are small businesses.

Facebook has been under fire for some time for its laconic stance against hate messages and disinformation. The foundation cites several causes, such as the fact that Facebook called the far-right blog Breitbart a “trusted news source” and that it left incendiary messages about the protests in America online.

Although the foundation does not explicitly mention President Donald Trump, his presence on the platform is also controversial. Last month, the president posted a message on Twitter glorifying violence. It was hidden by Twitter, but Facebook left the same message. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg has said several times that he has no intention of fact-checking politicians or deleting posts.

Zuckerberg has since announced that he will still make changes. Facebook will provide information about elections and there will be a “higher standard for hateful content in advertisements.” Facebook also says it will now label messages that call for votes.

Update: adjusted that Trump glorified violence in his tweet and did not call for it.