Civil rights groups call for ‘pause’ on Facebook ads

Several civil rights and or advocacy groups are calling on large advertisers to stop Facebook ad campaigns during July because y say social network isn’t doing eugh to curtail racist and violent content on its platform.

groups in “#StopHateforProfit” campaign, launched Wednesday, include Anti-Defamation League, NAACP, Sleeping Giants, Color Of Change, Free Press and Common Sense.

“It is clear that Facebook and its CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, are longer simply negligent, but in fact, complacent in spread of misinformation, despite irreversible dam to our democracy. Such actions will upend integrity of our elections as we head into 2020,” said NAACP CEO Derrick Johnson in a statement.

groups say that Facebook amplifies white supremacists, allows posts that incite violence and contain political propaganda and misinformation, and doesn’t stop “bad actors using platform to do harm.” y want to apply public pressure on Facebook to “stop generating ad revenue from hateful content, provide more support to people who are targets of racism and hate, and to increase safety for private groups on platform.”

Facebook did t immediately return a request for comment.

big tech companies have struggled over how to man floods of posts and videos that users put on ir platforms every day. Facebook’s employees recently publicly criticized Zuckerberg for deciding to leave up posts by President Donald Trump that suggested police-brutality protesters in Minneapolis could be shot.

As it faces criticism for its policy of allowing politicians to post false information, including about voting, company is launching an effort to boost U.S. voter turut.