ORGANISERS of a major Facebook advertising boycott have described a meeting with bosses as “disappointing”, saying Mark Zuckerberg and other senior executives are not yet ready to address hate on their platform.
Zuckerberg and chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg held virtual talks with civil rights groups leading the #StopHateForProfit campaign, which has led to an exodus of advertisers on the social network.
Coca-Cola, Adidas and Unilever are among the hundreds of companies to pull advertising, at least temporarily for the entire month of July.
Leaders of the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People (NAACP), Colour Of Change, Free Press and the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) – who are part of the campaign, said: “Zuckerberg offered the same old defence of white supremacist, anti-Semitic, Islamophobic and other hateful groups on Facebook that the Stop Hate For Profit Coalitions, advertisers and society at large have heard too many times before.
“Instead of actually responding to the demands of dozens of the platform’s largest advertisers that have joined the #StopHateForProfit ad boycott during the month of July, Facebook wants us to accept the same old rhetoric, repackaged as a fresh response.”
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Rashad Robinson, president of Colour Of Change, tweeted: “It was a disappointment.
“They have had our demands for years and yet it is abundantly clear that they are not yet ready to address the vitriolic hate on their platform.”
The group said the only recommendation Facebook bosses attempted to address is hiring a civil rights position but they were unable to commit to that person being placed at the “C-suite level” with other chiefs.
“Zuckerberg offered no automatic recourse for advertisers whose content runs alongside hateful posts,” a statement by organisers continued. He had no answer for why Facebook recommends hateful groups to users.
The boycott came about after the social network refused to take down a post by Donald Trump.
During Black Lives Matter protests in the wake of George Floyd’s killing, the US president said: “When the looting starts, the shooting starts.”
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