Facebook fails to address ad boycott concerns at ‘disappointing’ summit
Organisers of an advertising boycott against Facebook called a meeting it held with the firm’s executive team “disappointing”, as companies seek to pressure the tech giant into addressing hate speech on the platform.
The groups, which includes the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), Free Press, Color of Change and the NAACP, said they saw “no commitment to action” after talking with chief executive Mark Zuckerberg, chief operating office Sheryl Sandberg and others yesterday.
More than 900 advertisers have so far signed up to the Stop Hate for Profit campaign, organised to pressure Facebook to take better action in blocking out hate speech and misinformation, in the wake of the death of George Floyd in police custody.
“They (Facebook) showed up to the meeting expecting an A for attendance,” said Rashad Robinson, president of Color of Change.
Facebook said in a statement after the meeting that “we know we will be judged by our actions not by our words and are grateful to these groups and many others for their continued engagement”.
Meanwhile a two-year review by auditors into civil rights action at Facebook is set to declare that the tech giant’s approach to equality remains “too reactive and piecemeal”.
A prepublication draft of the report, seen by the New York Times, is reported to have concluded: “The auditors do not believe that Facebook is sufficiently attuned to the depth of concern on the issue of polarisation and the way that the algorithms used by Facebook inadvertently fuel extreme and polarising content.”
Facebook has been criticised over its decision to continue to permit political organisations and leaders to distribute content that contains misinformation, on the basis of freedom of speech.
Other social platforms such as Twitter have placed warnings on such posts to alert users that the information may be inaccurate.
A Facebook spokesperson said the audit “has been a deep analysis of how we can strengthen and advance civil rights at every level of our company — but it is the beginning of the journey, not the end.
“What has become increasingly clear is that we have a long way to go. As hard as it has been to have our shortcomings exposed by experts, it has undoubtedly been a really important process for our company.”
Color of Change said yesterday that the only recommendation Zuckerberg and Sandberg attempted to address during the hour-long meeting was establishing a civil rights position within the company, but they would not commit to making it a senior executive job or defining the role.
The campaign, which calls for advertisers to pause their Facebook ads for the month of July or longer, has gained members including Unilever, Coca-cola and Starbucks.
It has outlined 10 changes it wants, including allowing victims of severe harassment to speak with a Facebook employee and giving refunds to brands whose ads show up next to offensive content that is later removed.
“We had 10 demands, and literally we went through the 10 and we didn’t get commitments, timeframes or clear outcomes,” said Jonathan Greenblatt, chief executive of the ADL.