This archive report was first published on 30 June 2020.
Facebook's market value plummeted by $50 billion in a single week as the social media giant faced a global advertiser boycott. The unprecedented move, which has seen nearly 200 firms pause advertising on the platform, has sparked a digital activist campaign aimed at curbing hateful and toxic content.
Major brands such as Unilever, Starbucks, Levis, and Coca-Cola have joined the #StopHateForProfit campaign, organized by social justice activists. The campaign's impact remains unclear, with some analysts predicting a softening of Facebook's revenues but a likely bounceback.
Facebook has responded to the boycott by announcing it would ban a wider category of hateful content in ads and add tags to posts that are newsworthy but violate platform rules. However, activists say the changes do not go far enough and are pressing for more significant action.
"We've entered a totally new era of digital activism," said Greg Sterling, a digital marketing analyst. "Non-profit groups are appealing to advertisers to police social media, given the general reluctance or refusal of the companies to do so themselves."
"We've entered a totally new era of digital activism," said Greg Sterling, a digital marketing analyst. "Non-profit groups are appealing to advertisers to police social media, given the general reluctance or refusal of the companies to do so themselves."
Despite the boycott, Facebook boasts some seven million advertisers on its network, with the vast majority small- and medium-sized businesses. Analysts predict that most of the advertisers will return to Facebook given its massive user base of over 2.6 billion people.
