starbucks joins boycott of social media advertising to help stop hate speech

UPDATE 06/29/2020: starbucks is the latest company to announce the suspension of social media ads in the effort to crack down on hate speech. in a statement released yesterday on june 28, 2020, the american coffee giant said: ‘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.’  the corporation joins coca-cola in support of the #StopHateforProfit campaign, which is demanding greater accountability from social media outlets.

pressure is mounting on facebook as coca-cola joins a growing list of brands that have announced the ‘pause’ of advertising on its social media platforms. the move is in support of the #StopHateforProfit campaign, which accuses the tech company of not taking accountability or ‘adopting common-sense changes to their policies that will help stem radicalization and hate.’  the organizers are asking business to stand in solidarity and stop advertising on facebook’s services for the month of july.

in a statement published on the coca-cola website today (june 27 2020), chairman and CEO james quincey 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.’

image by laura chouette on unsplash (main image by charles koh on unsplash

this announcement from coca-cola comes despite mark zuckerberg’s efforts to stop the snowballing boycott. yesterday (june 26 2020), zuckerberg posted a public address that announced the changes facebook is making in light of feedback from the civil rights community. within the post, zuckerberg said the site would update its advertising policy to ‘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.’  the changes also include the labelling of potentially harmful content that they have deemed to be of public interest: ‘we’ll allow people to share this content to condemn it, just like we do with other problematic content, because this is an important part of how we discuss what’s acceptable in our society,’  said zuckerberg.

however, in response to zuckerberg’s public address, the organizers of the #StopHateforProfit campaign are asking for more to be done to crack down on hate speech and stop the spread of disinformation. ‘posts that call for violence will still be allowed if they come from someone ‘newsworthy’ but they will now be labelled. none of this will be vetted or verified – or make a dent in the problem on the largest social media platform on the planet,’  they said in response to zuckerberg. ‘we have been down this road before with facebook. they have made apologies in the past. they have taken meager steps after each catastrophe where their platform played a part. but this has to end now.’

the list of brands joining the boycott is growing by the day, with names such as honda, mozilla, patagonia, the north face and unilever all participating. facebook has already witnessed a significant financial impact, with a huge drop in market shares and market value. as reported by bloomberg, shares in facebook fell by 8.3% on friday. the company’s market value has dropped $56 billion, and mark zuckerberg’s personal wealth has taken a hit of $7.2 billion.

mark zuckerberg, CEO of facebook