Published 15:19 IST, July 3rd 2020
Mark Zuckerberg on advertisers boycotting Facebook ads: They will be back 'soon enough'
On June 26, Mark Zuckerberg told Facebook staff that the company is not going to change its approach because of a threat to a “small per cent” of revenue.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg exuded confidence that the advertisers will be back “soon enough” on the company’s social media platforms after several firms boycotted advertisement in the wake of 'Stop Hate for Profit' campaign. In a private meeting on June 26, Zuckerberg told Facebook staff that the company is not going to change its approach because of a threat to a “small per cent” of revenue.
"My guess is that all these advertisers will be back on the platform soon enough," the Facebook chief executive commented on the matter which was leaked to the Information news site and later confirmed by the social network.
Several advertisers including Unilever, Verizon, Patagonia, Ben and Jerry’s, North Face, Eileen Fisher, and Viber do not want to associate their brands with the environment created by Facebook, said Stop Hate for Profit in a statement. The campaign said that though Facebook has announced a small number of changes, it has denied addressing hate more broadly in groups and posts.
“We have been down this road before with Facebook. They have made apologies in the past. They have taken meagre steps after each catastrophe where their platform played a part. But this has to end now,” the statement read.
On June 30, Puma joined the list of companies that have paused advertisements across Facebook's social media platforms. However, it has decided to pause its paid advertisements on Facebook and Instagram only in order to persuade the company to remove abusive and harmful content from its platforms.
'Facebook holds mirror'
Nick Clegg, Facebook Inc. global affairs chief, published an open letter on July 1 claiming that the social network does not benefit from hate. He said that Facebook holds up a mirror to society and everything that is good, bad and ugly in the societies will find expression on its social media platform.
Clegg mentioned the European Commission report to highlight the efforts of Facebook to address hate speech. According to the independent report, only Facebook is consistently informing both trusted flaggers and general users as Twitter, YouTube and Instagram provide feedback more frequently when notifications come from trusted flaggers.
“Billions of people use Facebook and Instagram because they have good experiences - they don’t want to see hateful content, our advertisers don’t want to see it, and we don’t want to see it. There is no incentive for us to do anything but remove it,” added Clegg.
Updated 15:19 IST, July 3rd 2020