Big business and civil rights groups ‘unfriend’ Facebook

Mark Zuckerberg, once the darling of the advertising industry and the multinational corporations who flocked to advertise on Facebook, is having a tough time of it at the moment. 

Not only are the deep-pocket global big corporates boycotting Facebook as an ad medium. The high-profile civil right organisations and activist groups associated with the Black Lives Matter movement are piling on the pressure too.

Corporates and activists are united against a common foe

The corporate world and civil right bodies are uncomfortable bedfellows. The tendency is to hang out together when it suits the moment, but there is always an uneasiness about the relationship and an underlying mistrust that their true aims are too far apart.

But for the moment they are united against what they see as a common enemy. It is Facebook’s unwillingness– or could that be inability– to curb what they see as the hate speech, disinformation, prejudice and downright unpleasantness which proliferates across the platform.

Not the first time businesses have complained about hate speech

To be clear, corporates advertisers have complained in the past about their Facebook ads ending up in close proximity to pages and posts that promote racism, violence, religious intolerance and a whole lot more besides. This, they say, is not where they want their brand to be seen and is incompatible with their brand values.

Three years ago, the then Chief Marketing Officer of consumers good giant Unilever, Keith Weed, went on the offensive against Facebook and social media platforms in general, accusing them of creating division and calling them “little better than a swamp”.

At the time, a seemingly contrite Facebook said it has made changes to its news feed, demoting clickbait content and focusing more on local news publishers and “meaningful interactions” between friends.

Fast forward to 2020 and not much seems to have changed

So much for that. Fast forward to 2020 and, in this time of extreme social sensitivity, the big companies are again saying they’ve had enough of what they feel is a lack of commitment from the social media platforms to control hate speech and disinformation.

So they’re protesting the way that big businesses do; by shutting their wallets and extending a polite middle finger to Facebook, in particular, but also to other popular platforms such as Instagram and Twitter.

Coca-Cola, a global name with an eye-watering advertising budget, said on Friday 26 June that it will be pausing its advertising on all social media platforms around the world. 

Similarly, Unilever is stopping its advertising on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter across the US until the end of 2020.

Days later, the British alcoholic beverages company Diageo joined the boycott, saying it would stop most social media advertising from July.

Starbucks joins in and says more needs to be done to stop hate speech

Coffee chain Starbucks joined the party too. It said it intended to stop paid advertising on all social media platforms. Instead, it intended to have discussions internally and with media partners and civil rights organisations to stop the spread of hate speech.

“We believe in bringing communities together, both in person and online, and we stand against hate speech,” the company said. 

“We believe more must be done to create welcoming and inclusive online communities, and we believe both business leaders and policy makers need to come together to affect real change.”

#StopHateForProfit was the catalyst for boycott action by companies

Although this uneasiness had been brewing for some time, corporates generally don’t like to be the one to stick their heads above the trench to throw the first grenade. 

Their announcements were precipitated by the formation of a group called #StopHateForProfit, which kicked off earlier in June by targeting Facebook. 

The group — a coalition of various social justice groups — wants businesses to withdraw advertising support for Facebook because it is “a company puts profit over safety”.

According to a report by broadcaster CNBC, among the group’s demands  is a “separate moderation pipeline” for users who say they’ve been targeted because of their race or religion, or to let advertisers see how frequently their ads appeared near content that was later removed for misinformation or hate speech, and allow them refunds for those advertisements.

Meeting held this week for the two groups to discuss differences

On Tuesday this week the antagonists met to discuss their differences. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg was there. So too was Facebook’s Chief Operating Officer, Sheryl Sandberg, and other heavyweights working for the social media platform.

By all accounts, the meeting of the minds did not go well.

“Civil rights leaders organising a major advertising boycott of Facebook said they remained unconvinced that the social network is taking enough action against hate speech and disinformation,” the Washington Post reported.

“Civil rights leaders used the session to press [Facebook]… to institute changes including installing a top-level executive who will ensure the global platform does not fuel racism and radicalisation.”

Head of activist group says meeting was ‘disappointing’

Speaking at a subsequent news conference, Color of Change President, Rashad Robinson, said the hour-long meeting was “disappointing”. 

“Attending alone is not enough,” said Robinson. “At this point, we were expecting some very clear answers to the recommendations we put on the table. And we did not get them.”

Meanwhile Facebook continues to take a hit to its US$70 billion annual ad income (2019 figure), which is its main source of revenue.

But not everyone can afford to participate in the boycott

Is it a boycott that all advertisers will participate in? If you look at Facebook right now, the answer is obviously “no”, because there are still ads aplenty.

Andrew Smit, Cape Town-based Head of Data Solutions for Incubeta, an international digital marketing group, says he still remains sceptical about the boycott affecting lasting change. This is because many businesses simply cannot afford to participate.

“It is an unfortunate reality that the majority of those advertising on Facebook can’t afford to take the moral stand many of them may want,” he states. 

Direct-response advertisers earn a living from Facebook

“Most advertisers on Facebook are direct-response advertisers. They rely on the return on investment from their ad spend. So, if you were spending R10,000 a month on ads on Facebook you would be doing it because you are seeing a R50,000 or R100,000 a month return on that spend,” Smits says. 

 “If an advertiser like this suspended or pulled ads in support of the boycott, it would actually cost them money.

“As of April 2020, there were 8-million Facebook advertisers, so Mark Zuckerberg has a fair size customer base that he knows won’t shift their spend. This is more of a reputational issue than a financial threat.”

Clearly, it’s not over yet.

Also read: Facebook’s recent acquisition of GIPHY: Why it matters