Starbucks latest to pause social media ads, pledges to curb spread of hate speech

Amid widespread demonstrations around the world against racism, several major companies have paused social media advertisements as a protest against hate speech on the platforms.

In the latest development to the movement, Starbucks has now decided to pause advertising on all social media platforms and promised to have discussions with media partners and civil rights organizations to stop the spread of hate speech. The coffeehouse company on Sunday announced it will continue to post on social media without paid promotion.

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Starbucks, however, said its actions are not part of the #StopHateForProfit ad boycott campaign called by civil rights organisations which kicked off earlier this month. The advertisement boycott campaign that began with Facebook is now hitting other social media platforms as well. 

Coca Cola on Friday also said it would pull out advertisements from all social media platforms globally for thirty days, while Unilever has halted ads on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter in the US till December 31.

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Facebook loses $7 billion

CEO and founder of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg has lost $7.2 billion after several companies pulled out of Facebook ads. The companies which have boycotted promotion on the social media platform include Unilever which said that it would stop spending money on Facebook this year. In addition, major brands like Verizon communication, Hershey’s which accounted for a large share in the company's revenue have also backed off.

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All this is has led to a plunge in the market value of the company with its shares falling by 8.3 percent on June 26. Louise Vuitton's Bernard Arnault who overtook Zuckerberg to become the third richest man on the net is only behind Amazon’s Jeff Bezos and Microsoft's Bill Gates. 

In recent months, demands for boycotting Facebook have grown with civil rights groups slamming the social media platform for not taking effective action against hate speech, racist posts, paid political advertisements with hyper targetting users. 

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