‘Stop Hate for Profit’ Facebook ad boycott campaign to go global, organisers say

The ‘Stop Hate for Profit’ campaign will begin calling on major companies in Europe to join the Facebook ad boycott

Since the campaign launched earlier this month, more than 160 companies have signed on to stop buying ads on the world’s largest social media platform in July

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Annually, Facebook generates US$70 billion in advertising sales and about a quarter of it comes from big companies such as Unilever. Photo: Reuters

Published: 10:25am, 29 Jun 2020Updated: 10:25am, 29 Jun 2020

Organisers of a Facebook advertising boycott campaign that has drawn support from a rapidly expanding list of major companies are now preparing to take the battle global to increase pressure on the social media company to remove hate speech.

The “Stop Hate for Profit” campaign will begin calling on major companies in Europe to join the boycott, Jim Steyer, chief executive of Common Sense Media, said in an interview with Reuters on Saturday. Since the campaign launched earlier this month, more than 160 companies, including Verizon Communications and Unilever, have signed on to stop buying ads on the world’s largest social media platform for the month of July.

Free Press and Common Sense, along with US civil rights groups Color of Change and the Anti-Defamation League, launched the campaign following the death of George Floyd, an unarmed Black man killed by Minneapolis police.

“The next frontier is global pressure,” Steyer said, adding the campaign hopes to embolden regulators in Europe to take a harder stance on Facebook. The European Commission in June announced new guidelines for tech companies including Facebook to submit monthly reports on how they are handling coronavirus misinformation.

The outrage in the United States over the death of Floyd has led to an unprecedented reaction from corporations around the world. Its impact has been felt beyond US borders. Unilever, for example, changed the name of a skin-lightening product popular in India called Fair and Lovely.

The global campaign will proceed as organisers continue to urge more US companies to participate. Jessica Gonzalez, co-chief executive of Free Press, said she has contacted major US telecommunications and media companies to ask them to join the campaign.

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