Corporate Giants Joining Hands Together to Pause Their Digital Advertisements on Facebook and Other Social Media Platforms
Starbucks, Coca-Cola,
Hershey’s, North Face, Unilever, Verizon, Honda, etc. are halting their
advertisement on all social media platforms in favor of the “Stop Hate For Profit” campaign.
The number is expected to grow.
The corporate
giants want to send this message to the social media platforms that they are
accountable for their moderation policies against hate speech, racism, and
violent threats. They cannot simply turn a blind eye against posts that incite
violence, hate, and suppresses the justice and rights of minorities. This is a
high time that the businesses and policymakers should sit together and make
changes that should bring positivity, freedom, and equality in the world.
Recently Facebook
faced a lot of criticism when they didn’t pay heed to the threat posts and hate
speech of President Donald Trump. The incident of George Floyd’s death also raised
a lot of questions against white supremacy as Facebook again chose to stay
quiet. This led to an organized effort called “Stop Hate For Profit”. Facebook
earns its big chunk of profit through advertisement; the Ad boycott will remind
them that their profit is not worth promoting hate and racism.
Starbucks is
not officially joining the “Stop Hate For Profit “campaign organized by NAACP
and other social justice organizations. The company says that it will continue
to post to social media but it will not do paid promotions. Starbucks said in
its blog
post “We believe in bringing communities together, both in-person
and online, and we stand against hate speech.”
The Coca-Cola company went one step ahead and announced that
it will pause its advertisement not only on Instagram and Facebook but also on YouTube,
Twitter, and other social media platforms. This action will be in effect from 1st
July till its end. The
Company’s CEO James Quincey announced this on the website of Coca-Cola
BREAKING: “The Coca-Cola Company will pause paid advertising on all social media platforms globally for at least 30 day,” CEO James Quincey says. Coke “will take this time to reassess our advertising policies” & it adds: “We also expect greater accountability and transparency” pic.twitter.com/uJ95UEcP5s
— CNBC Now (@CNBCnow) June 26, 2020
announced that they will stop promoting their ads on all major social media
platforms throughout the year. The company says “Continuing to advertise on
these platforms at this time would not add value to people and society. “Verizon is another big company that has announced the holding of its ads on Facebook and Instagram. “We have strict content policies in place and
have zero-tolerance when they are breached, we take action,” Verizon’s chief
media officer John Nitti said in a statement. “We’re pausing our advertising
until Facebook can create an acceptable solution that makes us
comfortable and is consistent with what we’ve done with YouTube and
other partners.”
We have taken the decision to stop advertising on @Facebook, @Instagram & @Twitter in the US.
The polarized atmosphere places an increased responsibility on brands to build a trusted & safe digital ecosystem. Our action starts now until the end of 2020.https://t.co/flHhKid6jD pic.twitter.com/QdzbH2k3wx
— Unilever #StaySafe (@Unilever) June 26, 2020
The main point of dispute between the
brands joining the boycott and social media platforms have been the inability to
take action against Trump’s
post calling for violence against protestors and using Nazi
imagery in campaign ads. Unlike Twitter that has quickly responded with
labeling manipulated
media tag to the misleading video of Trump, the Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg
remained unresponsive and preferred to stay quiet despite facing backlash and
criticism not only from outside but also from within the company.
and spoken publicly by addressing the changes the company has taken in its
policies regarding its lack of moderation of violent threats, hate speech, and a misleading video posted by President Donald Trump and has joined twitter in removing
the manipulated video of the two toddlers.
