Long-running complaints about the proliferation of hate speech on social media – and the perceived unwillingness of some platforms to properly tackle the challenge – is bubbling up into a new campaign called ‘Stop Hate for Profit’. Its mission: “We are asking all businesses to stand in solidarity with our most deeply held American values of freedom, equality and justice and not advertise on Facebook’s services in July.”
The campaign is also setting out the steps it wants Facebook to take to address hate online, as is one of the groups backing it, ADL.
Is it working? Well, Unilever and Verizon are the latest big brands to support it, with the former also halting its ads on Twitter. Coca-Cola and Starbucks are also pausing their social media ads, although both made it clear they are not joining the Stop Hate for Profit campaign specifically.
CNN has more information on how Facebook is responding (in short: it’s promising to do better, although campaigners want more specifics on how) but also on whether even the biggest brands pausing their ads will hurt Facebook. “The highest-spending 100 brands accounted for $4.2 billion in Facebook advertising last year,” it noted. “About 6% of the platform’s ad revenue.”
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