Agencies put Facebook on hold
Some ads withheld over the platform’s hands-off stance on Trump’s posts
Nima Gardideh, the co-founder of a digital advertising agency, has encouraged his clients to hold back millions in advertising dollars from Facebook.
It struck him as “borderline tone-deaf ” to run ads on social media platforms when they were being used to organize protests against racism and police brutality, he said. And the money spent on ads might have been wasted because the usual concerns of consumers seemed not to amount to much at a historic moment.
But there was something else weighing on his mind: Facebook’s hands-off attitude toward President Donald Trump’s aggressive, misleading posts.
“We harshly disagree with how Facebook has approached this,” said Gardideh, co-founder of Pearmill, a New York marketing agency with a dozen clients, mostly tech startups. “For the past couple of years, this problem has become bigger and bigger. These massive platforms have to care about free speech issues to some extent, but Facebook is on the extreme end of not caring.”
Unlike Twitter and Snap, which have toughened their stances against Trump’s online statements that contain misinformation or promote violence, Facebook has held firm on its decision to leave his posts alone. Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s chief executive, has defended the policy, despite the resignations of some staff members and public criticism from current and former employees.
In recent days, many companies have cautiously returned to advertising, after having pulled back during the height of the pandemic in the United States. But some have decided not to advertise on Facebook, now that it has become clear that Zuckerberg will give the president a wide berth.
In late May, the social media companies’ dealings with the president diverged. Twitter started fact-checking Trump and posted an addendum to a tweet that called for military action against participants in a protest whom Trump had described as “THUGS.”
“This Tweet violated the Twitter Rules about glorifying violence,” the company said in a note attached to Trump’s statement.
Facebook reacted differently, allowing the same statement to go unflagged.
Around the same time, companies were struggling with how and whether to address the worldwide demonstrations prompted by the killing of George Floyd, a black man who died May 25 in Minneapolis after a white police officer pinned him to the ground.
On June 2, in an effort that became known as Blackout Tuesday, many advertisers posted images of black boxes instead of paid ads, a gesture intended to show support for the protests.
“They began to realize that all of their messaging was off-target,” said Rishad Tobaccowala, a former advertising executive who is now an author and marketing adviser.
Facebook generates 98% of its revenue through ads. It netted $17.4 billion from advertising in its most recent quarter. The pandemic has hurt advertising sales in general, and some companies are still “incredibly challenged,” said Carolyn Everson, Facebook’s vice president for global marketing solutions. Blackout Tuesday “really had a very significant role on our platforms,” Everson added, with hundreds of companies pausing their spending.
Since then, ad revenue has mostly recovered for the company, she said, although several companies have been slow to return as they adjusted their messaging. Nike, Anheuser-Busch and others each slashed their daily Facebook and Instagram spending by more than $100,000 in early June, according to advertising analytics platform Pathmatics.