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Post by Admin on Jun 28, 2020 8:25:57 GMT
Coca-Cola will suspend advertising on social media globally for at least 30 days, as pressure builds on platforms to crack down on hate speech.
"There is no place for racism in the world and there is no place for racism on social media," the drinks maker's chairman and CEO James Quincey said.
He demanded "greater accountability and transparency" from social media firms.
It came after Facebook said it would label potentially harmful or misleading posts left up for their news value.
Founder Mark Zuckerberg said Facebook would also ban advertising containing claims "that people of a specific race, ethnicity, national origin, religious affiliation, caste, sexual orientation, gender identity or immigration status" are a threat to others.
The organisers of the #StopHateforProfit campaign, which accuses Facebook of not doing enough to stop hate speech and disinformation, said the "small number of small changes" would not "make a dent in the problem".
More than 90 companies have paused advertising in support of #StopHateforProfit.
As a result of the boycott, shares in Facebook fell 8.3% on Friday, eliminating $56bn (£45bn) from the company's market value and knocking $7.2bn off Mr Zuckerberg's personal net worth, Bloomberg reported. As a result of the loss, Louis Vuitton boss Bernard Arnault replaced the Facebook founder as the world's third richest individual.
Coca-Cola told CNBC its advertising suspension did not mean it was joining the campaign, despite being listed as a "participating business".
Mr Quincey said the company would use the global "social media platform pause" to "reassess our advertising policies to determine whether revisions are needed".
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Post by Admin on Jun 28, 2020 22:10:22 GMT
PepsiCo, Inc. is quietly joining the growing number of companies pulling ad dollars from Facebook, people close to the matter tell FOX Business. Unlike companies like Ben and Jerry's and Patagonia that have vocalized their frustration with Facebook's policies involving allegedly racist content allowed on the site, PepsiCo has yet to make an official announcement. But people inside the world's second largest food and beverage company say the boycott will run through July and August. These people described the move as a "global boycott" on placing Facebook ads. The move could have broad implications given PepsiCo's size -- revenues of $67 billion last year -- and stature producing some of Corporate America's most iconic brands including its eponymous soft drink. PepsiCo is reported to spend as much as $2.6 billion annually in marketing, promotion and advertising, and like most big companies, it is now dedicating a growing portion of its ad budget to social media platforms such as Facebook, long considered one of the best ways to reach an audience online. In fact, some big companies, looking to cut costs amid the COVID-19 pandemic and recession, were weighing cutting TV advertising and diverting money to cheaper online venues. But that move ran into the vast social upheaval that followed the May 25 death of George Floyd, an unarmed black man who died while being taken into police custody. The protests also galvanized Corporate America, with many big companies holding seminars on race relations, while groups like the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) called on social media platforms to better police hate speech on their sites. Facebook has long been a target of criticism that it hasn't acted aggressively in curtailing hate speech with its founder and chief executive Mark Zuckerberg resisting claims to remove posts and label certain types of comments as inappropriate. The criticism of Facebook's policies intensified after President Trump' issued a statement on social media amid the George Floyd unrest that "When the looting starts, the shooting starts." Facebook allowed the comment to remain on its site, while its rival Twitter took the step of flagging the statement for violating its policies "glorifying violence." "We will join #StopHate4Profit and stop posting on @facebook for the month of July. We are taking this action to protest the platform’s irresponsible propagation of hate speech, racism, and misleading voter information. We encourage clients and our own people to join us," the company announced in a tweet. Goodby Silverstein is a subsidiary of Omnicom Group, one of the world's largest advertising agencies. It's unclear why PepsiCo decided not to issue a press release on the move. Company spokesman Jon Banner didn't return telephone calls and emails for comment. A Facebook press official also did not return calls and emails for comment.
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Post by Admin on Jun 30, 2020 1:00:20 GMT
Starbucks is the latest big company to rethink advertising on Facebook, announcing Sunday it will stop paying for content across all social media platforms while consulting with civil rights groups and media partners. “We believe in bringing communities together, both in person and online, and we stand against hate speech,” Starbucks said in a blog post. “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.” The company says it “will pause advertising on all social media platforms while we continue discussions internally, with our media partners and with civil rights organizations in the effort to stop the spread of hate speech.” The Seattle-based coffee giant is one of more than 100 companies that are halting their advertising spending on Facebook, though Starbucks isn’t joining the Stop Hate for Profit campaign behind the boycott, according to CNBC. Facebook is in hot water for what critics say is a failure to police hate speech and content promoting violence, including posts from President Donald Trump. Though Facebook was the initial focus of the boycott, Starbucks’ latest move shows the controversy is spreading to other platforms. Twitter is beginning to take a more hands-on approach to content moderation, flagging some of Trump’s tweets as misleading and sunsetting its political advertising program. The Stop Hate for Profit campaign is a partnership between the NAACP, Sleeping Giants, Color of Change, Free Press, and other organizations. They are demanding Facebook notify advertisers when their ads run next to content that was later removed for violating terms of service and provide refunds. The group also wants Facebook to remove groups that promote racism and misinformation and make other changes. REI, Coca-Cola, Levi’s, Limeade, Lululemon, Mozilla, and Patagonia are among the companies that have signed on. Advertising accounts for 98.5% of Facebook’s revenue, generating more than $69 billion in 2019. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has long said it is not appropriate for the company to regulate speech on its platform and has attempted to dodge accusations of political bias from both sides of the aisle. Until now, the criticism has not significantly impacted Facebook’s bottom line but the new wave of advertiser boycotts could change the dynamics for the social media giant.
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Post by Admin on Jul 1, 2020 7:40:33 GMT
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have been privately advocating for the #stophateforprofit campaign, which includes a boycott of Facebook, according to multiple sources working closely with the couple.
Why it matters: The boycott against Facebook has grown from an industry scuttle to a cultural battle over the way the tech giant moderates content, particularly around hate speech.
Details: Over the past few weeks, the couple has encouraged CEOs around the world to stand in solidarity with a coalition of civil rights groups, like the NAACP, Color of Change and the Anti-Defamation League, which began urging marketers to stop buying ads on Facebook via the Stop Hate for Campaign two weeks ago.
The conversations have mostly been about how online platforms have created conditions for hatred, radicalism and violence to grow and spread.
Their new nonprofit Archewell, will in part be focused on areas of digital trust and wellbeing, according to source working closely with the couple on building the organization.
The big picture: The pair has made mental health a significant part of their campaign as global influencers over the past few years, as well as social justice.
Markle has spoken out in the wake of George Floyd's death to talk about civil justice.
She and Prince Harry have been working with leaders pursuing racial and civil justice in the U.S.
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Post by Admin on Jul 9, 2020 2:39:46 GMT
The organizers behind a major advertiser boycott of Facebook have called a meeting with Mark Zuckerberg and other executives “disappointing”, saying the company failed to commit to concrete solutions for addressing hate speech and misinformation on the platform.
Officials at Facebook, including Zuckerberg, the CEO, and Sheryl Sandberg, chief operating officer, met with members of the coalition of civil rights groups over video chat for an hour on Tuesday to discuss the largest boycott in Facebook history, which has gained the support of more than 1,000 of its advertisers, including Unilever, Coca-Cola, and Starbucks.
But the company offered little in terms of concrete solutions, said Rashad Robinson of the Color of Change, one of the groups calling on advertisers to suspend spending as part of the campaign, known as Stop Hate for Profit.
“Facebook showed up to this meeting expecting a grade A for attendance,” he said. “Attendance alone is not enough. At this point we were expecting some very clear answers to the recommendations we put on the table, and we did not get that. We did not get to the heart of these problems.”
Those recommendations include putting someone with civil rights expertise in the C suite at Facebook, submitting to regular third-party audits of hate and misinformation, and removing the political exemptions that allow some public figures to bypass hate speech rules on the platform. The opposition to political exemptions has intensified in recent weeks after Donald Trump appeared to call for shooting protesters, a post flagged as inappropriate on Twitter but left up without action on Facebook.
The campaign also demands Facebook find and remove public and private groups focused on white supremacy, antisemitism, violent conspiracies, Holocaust denialism, vaccine misinformation, and climate denialism.
In a previous interview with the Guardian, Robinson said the campaign had reached a critical mass that Facebook could no longer ignore. “What we have done differently this time is to go directly to big advertisers who also have not been able to get changes from the platform,” he said, “advertisers who see their ads on Facebook showing up next to white supremacist and white nationalist content and who have watched as Mark Zuckerberg has seen himself as too powerful to have to listen.”
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