So far, over 180 companies including Levi’s and Starbucks, have signed up to the #StopHateForProfit campaign which is pushing for the social media giant to tackle hate speech and misinformation on its platforms. Tara Pilkington reports.
The campaign, which was set up on 17 June by a group which includes the Anti-Defamation League, the NAACP, Sleeping Giants, Color of Change, Free Press and Common Sense, is encouraging companies who advertise on Facebook to boycott the platform by not running any paid advertisements on either Facebook or its subsidiary Instagram during July. This is in response to the social media giant’s handling of racism, violence and misinformation on its platform.
Commenting on their decision to participate in this campaign, Starbucks have said in a statement to CNBC that: “We believe in bringing communities together, both in person and online, and we stand against hate speech,”
They added: “We believe more must be done to create welcoming and inclusive online communities, and we believe both business leaders and policymakers need to come together to affect real change.”
Since the launch of the campaign, other companies which have chosen to take part include:
- Patagonia
- The North Face
- Arc’teryx
- REI
- Dashlane
- Upwork
- Ben & Jerry’s
- Magnolia Pictures
- Hershey’s
- Mozilla
- Verizon
- Coca-Cola
- Honda
- Unilever
Zuckerberg has since responded to the growing criticism about misinformation on the social platform, announcing that the company would label all voting-related posts with a link encouraging users to look at its new voter information hub. He has also noted that the upcoming US Presidential election was always going to be heated, even before COVID-19 and the #BlackLivesMatter protests, but following these recent events, the situation is even more tense.
In a comment, Zuckerberg said: “There are no exceptions for politicians in any of the policies I’m announcing here today,”
