Facebook Is Hemorrhaging Advertisers Over Its Failure to Moderate Hate Speech – By Ryan Bort (Rolling Stone) / July 1 2020
Over 400 companies have at least temporarily pulled advertising from the platform
Facebook is finally paying a price for its inability — if not its outright refusal — to effectively moderate hate speech and misinformation on its platform.
In recent weeks, over 400 companies have pulled advertising from the social media giant. Coca-Cola, Adidas/Reebok, and Hershey’s are among the major brands to suspend Facebook advertising through the month of July, while others have pledged suspensions through the end of the year, or indefinitely. “When we re-engage will depend on Facebook’s response,” Levi Strauss CMO Jen Sey wrote in a blog post announcing the company’s decision to cease advertising. The decision, she wrote, was made out of “concern about Facebook’s failure to stop the spread of misinformation and hate speech on its platform.”
According to The New York Times, advertising makes up 98 percent of Facebook’s revenue.
The mass exodus began in June after advocacy groups, celebrities, and politicians began pushing for Facebook to reconsider its hands-off approach to hateful and/or inaccurate content, and for companies to stop advertising on the platform until it does. The calls were spurred in part by the police killing of George Floyd and the resulting Black Lives Matter demonstrations, as Facebook has long been fertile ground for white supremacist rhetoric. More specifically, they were spurred by multiple racist, inflammatory posts from President Trump responding to the demonstrations against police brutality, including one in which he suggested the “THUGS” protesting should be shot.
Continue to article: https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/facebook-advertisers-fleeing-content-moderation-1023186/
