Boycott won’t give Facebook the comeuppance it deserves

As much as Facebook deserves a comeuppance for its years of egregious behavior, the social media company probably won’t suffer long-term from the July ad boycott.

Nor change its shameful ways.

It’s disgraceful that CEO and founder Mark Zuckerberg’s company divides America, threatens our democracy and gives the tech industry a black eye. His unrepentant behavior may lead to undesirable regulation by Congress, a body filled with politicians who don’t understand the innovation economy.

Meanwhile, Zuckerberg continues to rake in his billions.

Despite the boycott, the price of the company’s stock, which dropped 1.7% on Thursday, ended far ahead of where it started the week. History shows that advertising boycotts usually don’t work.

Zuckerberg knows this. He reportedly told employees that his “guess is that all these advertisers will be back on the platform soon enough.” Which is why he talks big about doing the right thing but, ultimately, focuses on the bottom line.

He announced some policy changes a week ago designed to crack down on disinformation and hate content. Facebook will now start labeling content that violates its policies. But it will leave the posts on its site if the “the public interest value outweighs the risk of harm.”

In other words, Facebook has no problem publishing material on its platform that it knows is false or crosses the line as hate speech.

Even if every one of Facebook’s 100 biggest advertisers joined in the boycott, it would still account for only 6% of the company’s annual ad revenue. Many of the companies participating already had plans to dial back their advertising dollars because of reduced sales during the pandemic.

If nothing else, the #StopHateForProfit campaign has been hugely successful in highlighting Facebook’s irresponsible behavior. We only wish the movement could make Zuckerberg change his ways.

San Jose Mercury News