Facebook ad boycott campaign calls on global companies to act

The “Stop Hate for Profit” campaign has convinced several big advertisers such as Verizon and Coca-Cola to pull their advertising from Facebook in a bid to pressure the social media to do more to combat hate speech and misinformation. The organizers behind the boycott are now going global. 

The organizers, made up of civil rights groups including the Anti-Defamation League, the NAACP, Sleeping Giants, Colors of Change, Free Press and Common Sense Media, will urge more international companies to participate in the ban. Unilever, based in the UK, has already said it would pull its ads from Facebook. 

“The next frontier is global pressure,” chief executive of Common Sense Media Jim Steyer, said in an interview with Reuters on Saturday. 

Since the campaign launched earlier this month, over 100 companies, including ice cream maker Ben & Jerry’s, outdoor-clothing brand North Face and Honda, have joined the boycott. 

The growing list of companies prompted a response from Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who said in an internal town hall on Friday that the social network will bar ads that contain claims that people of certain racial groups or ethnicities are a threat to the physical safety, health or survival of anyone else. Facebook will also prohibit ads that express contempt, dismissal or disgust of immigrants and refugees, or suggest they are somehow inferior.