Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
Slap in the Facebook
Big firms are refusing to advertise on the social media giant over ‘hate’ posts... but will it work?
SOCIAL media Goliath Facebook might finally be forced to clean up its act, as it faces losing millions from unimpressed advertisers.
Some of the world’s biggest companies – from Starbucks to Ford, Adidas to Lego, Coca-cola to Ben & Jerry’s – are among more than 600 to pull their advertising for the month of July.
It follows claims by campaigners that the US giant has been too slow and reluctant to remove hateful content.
A third of the globe’s top 58 ad spenders will either join the month-long blackout, or are likely to do so, according to the World Association of Advertisers.
Facebook, whose rise from start-up in 2004 to a £540billion beast, earns more than 98% of its revenue from ads, which brought in £56billion last year.
But chief executive Mark Zuckerberg yesterday did not appear overly worried, and is quoted as telling staff: “My guess is that all these advertisers will be back on the platform soon enough.
“We’re not going to change our policies or approach on anything because of a threat to a small per cent of our revenue.”
Calls to pause advertising began on June 17 after the launch of a campaign led by the US Anti-defamation League and the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People.
The move came in the wake of protests after the death of father-of-five George Floyd, 46, when a white police officer knelt on his neck for more than eight minutes on May 25 in Minneapolis.
There have also been reports that the Duke and Duchess of Sussex asked US civil rights group Stop Hate for Profit to name firms they could “help target” in a bid to dissuade advertisers from using the social network throughout July. Stop