More and more brands are joining the ‘Stop Hate for Profit’ boycott. The Facebook Ads boycott campaign is catching on and prominent brands and civil rights groups want to see changes implemented in the platform. The hashtag is #stophateforprofit

So, what happened exactly?

FreePress and Common Sense Media along with the Civil Rights groups launched a campaign following the death of George Floyd an unarmed Black man killed by the Minneapolis Police. The campaign hopes to make the regulators to take harder stance on Facebook. In June, the European Commission announced that all tech companies – including Facebook need to send in a detailed report on how they are handling the coronavirus misinformation. But, the outrage in the United States post the incident involving Floyd lead to unprecedented repercussions and corporations across the world are participating. The campaign reached as far as India and a popular skin lightening cream – Fair and Lovely – by Unilever decided to change the name of the product. Many global brands will slowly join.

What happened then?

Well, in response to all the outrage, Facebook – responsibly acknowledged and said that it will team up with civil rights activists and experts to develop tools to fight hate speech. Facebook also said that its investment is Artificial Intelligence tools have allowed it to find 90% of the hate speech before it was posted.

Now what will happen?

Facebook ads draws annual revenue of $70 billion on Ads alone – and about a quarter of it comes from the big companies such as Unilever. The vast majority of the Ads revenue comes from small businesses. The publicity about the Hate Speeches campaign has hit and hurt the perception and Facebook did see a 8.3% drop in stock price. It essentially wiped out $56  billion in market capitalization.

Information credit: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-facebook-ads-boycott-exclusive/exclusive-facebook-ad-boycott-campaign-to-go-global-organizers-say-idUSKBN23Z0O4

Stop Hate for Profit has outlined it’s demands and the boycott has spread to other advertising Social Media Platforms such as Twitter. All content platforms need make amends and address this issue!