Updated: The brands boycotting Facebook and Zuckerberg’s response

Coke, Honda, Verizon, Starbucks, Unilever, Pepsi and numerous others are pausing social media and backing Stop Hate for Profit.

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More brands are joining the Stop Hate for Profit Facebook ads boycott. The campaign is asking advertisers to pause their ad spend on Facebook and Instagram in July, arguing that Facebook has tolerated racism and hate speech and “turned a blind eye toward voter suppression on their platform.”

Expanding boycott. Nearly 1,000 companies and organizations have joined the boycott. Here are many of the larger brands involved:

  • Adidas
  • Beam Suntory
  • Ben & Jerry’s ice cream (owned by Unilever)
  • BestBuy
  • Body Shop
  • Blue Shield of CA
  • Chobani
  • Clorox (owned by Proctor & Gamble)
  • Coca-Cola
  • ConAgra brands
  • Denny’s
  • Diageo
  • Eddie Bauer
  • Edgwell Personal Care (owns Schick, Playtex, Wet Ones)
  • Eileen Fisher
  • Ford Motor Company
  • Hershey Company
  • Honda Motor Company
  • HP
  • Levi Strauss
  • Lululemon
  • Madewell
  • Magnolia Pictures
  • Mars, Inc.
  • Microsoft (paused spending in May)
  • Mozilla
  • North Face
  • Patagonia
  • Pepsi
  • Pfizer
  • Reebok
  • REI
  • SAP
  • Siemens
  • Starbucks
  • UGG
  • Unilever
  • Upwork
  • Verizon Communications
  • Williams Sonoma

Protest organizers say their next move is to go global and convince more non-U.S. companies to join the boycott.

Facebook statement and changes. In the face of intensifying public pressure, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg posted a statement vowing to make a number of policy and practical changes on the platform:

  • Providing voting information and helping people register to vote
  • Preventing “new forms of potential voter suppression”
  • Banning “any content that misleads people on when or how they can vote,” including “respond and remove false claims about polling conditions in the 72 hours leading into election day.”
  • Helping prevent voter intimidation on the platform
  • Ads policy will now “prohibit claims that people from a specific race, ethnicity, national origin, religious affiliation, caste, sexual orientation, gender identity or immigration status are a threat to the physical safety, health or survival of others”
  • Labeling but allowing content from public figures that otherwise violates terms
  • Removing content, regardless of the source, “if we determine that content may lead to violence or deprive people of their right to vote”

Balancing interests. Zuckerberg says that in implementing these policies the company is trying to balance “public health and racial justice while maintaining our democratic traditions around free expression and voting.”

Below, Mark Zuckerberg elaborates upon the above policy changes.

An update from our company town hall.

An update from our company town hall.

Posted by Mark Zuckerberg on Friday, June 26, 2020

Opinions expressed in this article are those of the guest author and not necessarily Search Engine Land. Staff authors are listed here.


About the author

Greg Sterling
Contributor
Greg Sterling is a Contributing Editor to Search Engine Land, a member of the programming team for SMX events and the VP, Market Insights at Uberall.

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