Hershey, one of the world’s leading chocolate producers, also confirmed to the USA Today newspaper on Friday that it would join the boycott call and stop running ads in July. The company also plans to cut spending on Facebook and Instagram by a third for the rest of the year.
US civil rights organizations called on companies to boycott Facebook in mid-June. This is how the group is to be hit at a sensitive point – Facebook generates almost all of its sales with advertising revenue. The US wave of protests against racism and police violence has again flared up criticism of Facebook for carelessly handling controversial posts. Chief executive Mark Zuckerberg also made a significant contribution to this, refusing to take action against controversial statements by US President Donald Trump. There was even criticism from our own employees.
Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg announced on Friday in a livestream that he would act more strongly against hate messages in the future, delete false reports immediately before the US presidential election and raise the standards for advertising. “I stand against hate and everything that incites violence,” said Zuckerberg at the company’s headquarters in Palo Alto, where he announced the planned measures of his company.
In addition, pejorative and hateful messages regarding ethnicity, religion or sexual preferences should also be blocked in advertising. Zuckerberg also said that some Facebook content that actually violates the guidelines of the social network, but is relevant to news for example due to a prominent sender, will be flanked with information in the future.
However, according to media reports, some companies subsequently expressed doubts about it. “We do not believe that Facebook will efficiently manage violent and divisive speeches on its platforms,” Hershey wrote in a statement quoted by the USA Today newspaper. “Despite repeated pledges from Facebook to take action, we haven’t seen any significant changes.”
Honda announced that it would no longer place ads on Facebook and Instagram in July to send a signal against “hate and racism”. Unilever even wants to forego paid advertising for the rest of the year – not just on Facebook but also on Twitter. The short message service, on which Trump likes to publish his often controversial messages, has also been criticized for some time. The Dutch-British group does not want to cut its US advertising budget, but only redistribute it to other companies.
Previously, several other companies, including the US mobile communications giant Verizon and the well-known outdoor brands The North Face and Patagonia, had joined the #StopHateForProfit initiative. Unilever – whose ice cream brand Ben & Jerry’s was also there – is now going one step further – because the campaign was initially only about an advertising boycott in July. After the announcement by the consumer goods company, Facebook and Twitter came under strong pressure on the stock exchange.
© dpa-infocom, dpa: 200627-99-584781 / 3
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