2020 has definitely seen its share of uprisings, from environmental protests to organized movements such as black lives matter and while the peaceful, sometimes violent, protests erupt on our streets, a more silent battle is growing over social media – The Facebook Ad boycott.
This is certainly not the first time advertisers have pulled out of Facebook. In both 2013 and 2017 advertisers pulled rank due to hate speech and discrimination.
What’s changed I hear you ask? Well, nothing changed, in fact, things got much worse. Harmful content such as hate speech, racism, pornographic material, extremely violent content and misinformation still continues to be uploaded.
What has changed, is the power behind the 2020 Facebook Ad boycott –
#StopHateforProfit
Some of the biggest brands in the world have pledged alliance with the STFP campaign.
Brands such as Mircosoft, Adidas, Ben and Jerry’s, Coca-cola, Levi and North Face stopped running Ads, and although this has caused some loss for Facebook, it is only a small dent in their 10 billion pound pocket.
Unfortunately, it is going to take many more Facebook Business users to jump on board to make Mark Zuckerberg sit up and pay attention. Recent meetings have left organisers disappointed in Mark Zuckerberg’s response. ‘ Free Press Co-CEO Jessica González told the New York Times –
You would ask yourself, what’s the big deal, I mean, a few click’s and parental control is on my home network, right. The kids can’t even look up chicken breast recipes for god’s sake. Do we need to be touching on artificial intelligence and Cambridge Analytica…?
Why can’t Facebook prevent hate speech and harmful media being published?
Well, A.I. has a big role to play in this. In fact, in 2019 up to 80% of hate speech was removed by A.I, leaving the other 20% being flagged by users. Unfortunately the algorithms Facebook currently use only work in certain languages.
Languages which are spoken by minorities such as in Assam, India, leave Facebook open to radical speech which can be viewed millions of times over without going detected.
This is all good and well, however, I speak English, along with 20% of the world, and I still see plenty of harmful content on Facebook every day. So what’s going wrong?
Mass and money.
The sheer size of the platform makes it very difficult to fend off the tide, and I would think it really is like mopping up the ocean. Facebook registers 2.6 billion monthly active users as of the first quarter of 2020. And, America does not top the charts, oh no, you guessed it, India does.
Now money, that is a little more controversial. Take the President of the United States for example. I think I can safely say “most” of us are shocked at his social slurs and bogus beliefs. But, what about when he shares that on social media!
Donald has clearly set the bar, yet, our human rights to free speech leave FB again open to failure. How come he can say these things, yet, I can’t (not that I would want to follow in DT’s footsteps).
According to Zuckerberg, the statement is not an incitement to violence, but a warning about state action.
In 2015 according to reporting by the Washington Post the platform struggled to deal with the president who continued to push the limits of “free speech”, not wanting to anger the president they incited exception for “political discourse”.
Seem’s Mr Zuckerberg has got himself tightly wedged between a rock and a hard place.
But taking politics out of the situation, there is really no excuse for this wonderful platform to stick on “parental controls”.
If you can harvest information from over 87 million Facebook users, sway Brexit votes, and make America “great” again by giving them Donald Trump, you can stop porn, hate, and crimes showing up on my news feed.
By the way, if you haven’t watched – The Great Hack, give it a go.
Although Facebook is a great tool for both personal use and for many businesses, we think FB has got a little greedy, and a lot less caring, so, may the battle continue on.
We are in support of #stophateforprofit
Heres our personal story (in a nutshell)
Just at the very start of lockdown, when all businesses struggled to make ends meet, Facebook decided to change some of their advertising policies WITHOUT notification, subsequently some of our Ads that were already running, now, went against these policies.
Without any warning, Facebook blocked/shutdown our agency account. Not only did this mean we could no longer advertise for ALL of our clients, but we no longer had access to ANY of them.
At the point business started to slow for everyone, Facebook took what we had left and stripped us from advertising for our agency and our clients!
It turns out, we are not the only ones to be treated in this way
There are thousands of businesses and individuals who have described the same experience online.
After weeks of trying to contact Facebook to help resolve this matter, with ZERO positive response from their services team. We had no choice but to start again. This meant trying to gain access to each individual account.
Currently, Facebook allows videos of violence, racial crimes and animal cruelty to be uploaded on to its site, yet businesses throughout the world are excessively penalised for advertising products and services which do not suit their policy of the moment.
Things such as, “sensational content” or “personal attributes”.
You can not use the term – “Car insurance for 18 to 24-year-olds” YET you can upload videos of dog fights or pornographic material!
So, although the above is not the reason why we are joining the #stophateforprofit movement, we feel it right to join others and speak out against this multi-billion dollar company treating both people and business with contempt.
Social media platforms can not be ignored when promoting your business, and although pausing current campaigns has not been an easy decision to make, we know it is the right one.
Facebook has an average advertising income of $55 billion per year.
We believe in decency, morality and civility over profits. We invite all business who advertise on Facebook to join with us.
