Over 400 brands such as Starbucks and Coca-Cola realized that their advertisements had disappeared from Facebook on Wednesday. This happened soon after the last-ditch talks to put an end to a hate speech boycott on the social media website, failed miserably.
Various civil rights groups in the U.S. turned to multinationals to help them force Facebook into taking serious steps towards blocking hate speech. They wanted the social media giant to firmly get rid of all content that could be classified as hate speech following the death of African-American, George Floyd. They were also afraid of the increasing violence as the nation is fully immersed in a reckoning due to racism.
Carolyn Everson, the vice president of global business solutions and the public policy director, Neil Potts represented Facebook in two meetings with advertisers. These sit-downs took place on Tuesday the day before the one-month boycott was to be placed.
However, both executives did not share the direction they would take to tackle hate speech. They focused on discussing press releases that had recently come out. This frustrated advertisers who believed that there was no proper plan in place. A major ad agency referred to the planned boycott and stated that it simply is not moving ahead.
Mark Zuckerberg, the Facebook Chief Executive has decided to meet with the person in charge of organizing the boycott. The Anti-Defamation League is one of the groups, announced that the meeting would be held on either Monday or Tuesday next week.
The civil rights groups in the U.S. such as the NAACP, Color of Change, and Anti-Defamation League are amongst those that initiated the ‘Stop Hate for Profit’ campaign. This was set up shortly after a video of George Floyd went viral on the internet. It showed a Black man being made a target of police brutality as one law enforcement officer pinned him to the ground with the weight of his knee. Since the incident occurred last month, ongoing Black Lives Matter protests have shaken the world.
The groups that organized the boycott have listed 10 demands that they want Facebook to fulfill. This includes giving a voice to people who have been victimized and harassed to a great extent. Another demand laid out was to revoke the financing of brands whose ads appear right next to hate speech and offensive content, which is later taken down.
Last week, Sheryl Sandberg the Chief Operating Officer of Facebook expressed that she wanted to meet with all the campaign organizers. This was supposed to be attended by Mark Zukerberg’s longtime friend, Chris Cox who is also the Chief Product Officer of the social media giant. He had previously resigned from Facebook stating that he was unhappy with the direction that the people in charge had in mind. However, he returned shortly after the protests began.
The groups agreed to set up the meeting but insisted that Zuckerberg should also attend it. The Chief Executive of the Anti-Defamation League, Jonathan Greenblatt stated that the CEO of Facebook-owned the largest amount of shares and therefore, is the ultimate authority.
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