Facebook is under increasing pressure from advertisers to fight hate speech and misinformation.
Graphics from Pixabay; Illustration by CNET
After meeting with Facebook executives on Tuesday, civil rights activists behind a growing advertising boycott of the world’s largest social network said they weren’t convinced that Facebook was doing enough to fight hate speech.
Last month, a coalition of civil rights organizations, including the Anti-Defamation League, NAACP, Free Press and Color of Change, urged companies to “take a break from hatred” and not advertise Facebook in July. On Tuesday morning, activists met virtually with executives such as Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and COO Sheryl Sandberg, as well as with members of the policy team.
“#StopHateForProfit heard nothing today to convince us that Zuckerberg and his colleagues are taking action. Instead of committing to a schedule to eradicate hatred and disinformation on Facebook, the company’s executives provided the same old conversation topics to us calm down without meeting our demands, “said Jessica J. González, co-CEO of Free Press, in a statement.
Facebook said it has rules against hate speech on its platform, but is trying to do more to combat hateful content and misinformation. After the meeting, Facebook spokesman Andy Stone shared a statement from the company in a tweet.
“This meeting was an opportunity for us to hear from the organizers of the campaign and to reaffirm our commitment to fighting hatred on our platform,” the statement said. “They want Facebook to be free of hate speech, and so should we. That’s why it’s so important that we work to get it right.”
Despite Facebook’s promise to do better, civil rights activists say they haven’t seen enough significant changes, especially after the police killed George Floyd. Conspiracy theories and misinformation about Floyd have spread across social networks, including false claims that Hungarian-American billionaire George Soros staged protests against Floyd’s death.
The campaign organizers have a list of 10 steps that Facebook should take. Recommendations include that people who are strongly hated or harassed can speak directly to a Facebook employee, hire a C-Suite executive with a civil background, and notify companies when their ads are pulled down alongside those pulled down by Facebook Content that was violated was violated its rules.
Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of ADL, said during a press conference that Facebook had not delivered any specific commitments, timeframes, or clear results. “We saw little today and heard almost nothing,” he said.
According to Greenblatt, Facebook managers talked about the nuances that come with moderating content, how they are on a “journey” and how they can better combat hate speech. “There is no trip, if you will, to fight hate. This is not a two-sided problem. It is neither partisan nor political to suppress prejudice,” he said.
Rashad Robinson, executive director of Color of Change, said Facebook managers had come to the meeting and expected “an A to attend,” but that’s not enough. The groups expected clear answers to their recommendations.
According to a list of the Sleeping Giants advocacy group, one of the organizers of the campaign, more than 970 companies and organizations have joined the campaign. Participants include various companies such as the outdoor clothing brand The North Face, the consumer goods giant Unilever and the telecommunications leader Verizon.
Facebook has more than 8 million active advertisers and had sales of $ 70 billion last year. Therefore, the boycott is unlikely to weigh heavily on the company’s finances. Nevertheless, marketing experts said the boycott could harm Facebook’s picture, which is already tarnished by a series of data protection scandals and controversial decisions to moderate content.
The company has come under fire, including from its own employees, because it has not removed a protest-related post from President Donald Trump that interest groups and other critics said could cause violence. Facebook left the post because it found that Trump’s remark “When the looting begins, the shooting begins” does not violate his rules. Facebook rival Twitter disguised Trump’s tweet with a hint that he was violating the site’s rules prohibiting the glorification of violence. However, users can still click a button to view the President’s comments if they so choose.
Facebook is the world’s largest social network with more than 2.6 billion monthly active users. Unlike other platforms, the company “over-prioritizes its political interest” in content moderation decisions, Robinson said.
The campaign puts Facebook in a difficult situation because the company doesn’t want to look as if it will make changes due to pressure from advertisers. Pile of sugar told employees that he expects advertisers to return to the social network “early enough” and that the company will not change its “policies or approaches to anything” as a percentage of its sales is under threat. Sandberg said Tuesday that changes the company is making are not “for financial reasons or due to pressure from advertisers, but because it is the right thing to do”.
On Wednesday, Facebook is expected to publish a final independent civil rights review, which is a two-year review of its policies and practices
Greenblatt signaled that the Facebook advertising boycott would continue last July if the company stopped doing hate speech.
“I think this campaign will continue to grow,” he said. “It is becoming more global. It is becoming more intense until we get the answers we are looking for.”