Following the protests in the United States over the killing of George Floyd, a group of six organizations called on Facebook advertisers to pause their spending on the social media platform during the month of July.
The #StopHateForProfit campaign has accused the social media giant of not doing enough to stop hate speech on its platform.
Some big companies seem to be heeding to the call of advert boycott. Starbucks has joined Coca Cola in announcing an outright ban on adverts across social-media companies.
Starbucks in statement on Sunday, announced it was immediately suspending all of its advertising on all social media platforms, while it continue to discuss internally with its media partners. Thus, becoming the latest company to suspend social media advertising.
Starbucks’ statement said “we believe in bringing communities together, both in person and online, and we stand against hate speech. 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.
“We 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.”
Although the company did not put time limit to the advert pause, it said it will continue to post on social media during the boycott.
A Starbucks spokesperson told the BBC the social media “pause” would not include YouTube, owned by Google.
Starbucks also said that though it is pausing advertising, it isn’t joining the #StopHateForProfit boycott campaign, which kicked off earlier this month.
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On Thursday, Coca Cola announced a 30-day ban on advertisements on all social media platforms while the company reconsiders its own policies. It also said the ban on adverts did not mean it was joining the campaign.
James Quincey, Chairman and CEO of The Coca-Cola Company in a statement on Saturday, 27 June said “there is no place for racism in the world and there is no place for racism on social media. The Coca-Cola Company will pause paid advertising on all social media platforms globally for at least 30 days.
‘We will take this time to reassess our advertising policies to determine whether revisions are needed. We also expect greater accountability and transparency from our social media partners.”
Facebook shares have fallen since Coca Cola announced its advert suspension on Thursday. The social-media giant makes nearly all of its revenue from advertising.
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In 2019, Facebook made $69.7 billion in advert revenue globally, with 27% increase compared to 2018.
Other big companies including Unilever, the Hershey Co, Verizon, Ben & Jerry’s, Levi’s, The North Face, REI, Patagonia and many others have over the past week, either paused or halted their advertising with Facebook and other social media platforms.
The pressure of the advert halt on Facebook seems to working, as the CEO Mark Zuckerberg on Friday said that “we will soon start labeling some of the content we leave up because it is deemed newsworthy, so people can know when this is the case,”
Written by;
Ifunanya Ikueze
