Stuff stops Facebook activity

New Zealand publisher Stuff is hitting pause on all Facebook activity as it reassesses its relationship with the under-fire social media giant.

An internal email sent to Stuff editorial managers yesterday said it was trialling ceasing all activity on Facebook and its subsidiary Instagram effective immediately.

The trial would apply across all titles owned by Stuff. Nearly 953,000 people follow the Stuff news Facebook page and 134,000 follow its Instagram account. It has dozens of other Facebook pages for its various titles and brands.

Stuff is New Zealand’s largest media company and was recently bought for $1 by its chief executive, Sinead Boucher, from its previous owner, Australian media company Nine.

The email said Stuff stopped advertising on Facebook soon after the 2019 mosque attacks in Christchurch because the company did not want to contribute financially to a platform that profited from publishing hate speech and violence.

The latest experiment was in the context of an international boycott Facebook movement, and applied until further notice, the email said.

‘‘It is an experiment though, and we’ll monitor the results closely,’’ it said.

Large international brands such as Coca-Cola, Unilever, Verizon and Starbucks are boycotting spending their advertising dollar with Facebook over accusations the tech company has not done enough to curb hate speech and disinformation.

Stuff editor-in-chief Patrick Crewdson said there was no fixed end date to the experiment. ‘‘It’s the sort of thing we’re going to monitor week by week and see how it goes,’’ Crewdson said.

There had been a long-running conversation about what relationship Stuff should have with Facebook and what presence Stuff should have on the social media website, he said.

Stuff’s Facebook boycott tied in with recent developments at the company including it coming under New Zealand ownership and the introduction of a Stuff supporter programme seeking financial contributions from readers. ‘‘With those developments there’s been much more of a focus around public trust as a really essential value for us.’’

The boycott decision was made in the context of the ‘‘various unhealthy things’’ seen on Facebook such as fake news, hate speech and fraudulent advertising, Crewdson said.

Stuff wanted to build an environment of trust so readers of its journalism could have confidence in the accuracy of what they were reading, he said.

The trial would help Stuff determine how much of its traffic was derived from Facebook, something which had been hard to do previously, he said.

There was a direct connection between Stuff traffic and revenue and Stuff’s bean counters would be looking closely at what impact the boycott has on revenue.