Facebook Tightens Controls on Speech as Ad Boycott Grows
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Tightens Controls on Speech as Ad Boycott Grows
Unilever to halt ads on Facebook, Twitter for remainder of year
Unilever
is suspending U.S. ads on Facebook and Twitter, citing hate speech and divisive
content.
By Suzanne Vranica and Deepa
Seetharaman Updated June 26, 2020 8:44 pm ET
Under mounting pressure from advertisers, Facebook Inc. said it would
start labeling political speech that violates its rules and take other measures
to prevent voter suppression and protect minorities from abuse.
The new policies were
announced Friday shortly after The Wall Street Journal reported that
consumer-goods giant Unilever PLC is halting U.S. advertising
on Facebook and Twitter Inc. for at least the remainder of the
year, citing hate speech and divisive content on the platforms.
Unilever’s move marked a
significant escalation in advertisers’ efforts to force changes by the tech
companies. In a live stream announcing the changes, Facebook Chief Executive
Mark Zuckerberg didn’t mention Unilever or the ad boycott, but said he was
“optimistic that we can make progress on public health and racial justice while
maintaining our democratic traditions around free expression and voting.”
Facebook has said it
doesn’t make policy decisions in response to revenue pressure, and a spokesman
said the changes were a follow-up to Mr. Zuckerberg’s previous commitment to
prepare for coming elections.
Some of the measures described on Friday were clarifications of
clarified existing policies, and civil-rights leaders who have been in
discussions with the company on these issues said the moves were insufficient.
Facebook shares fell more
than 8% on Friday and Twitter shares dropped more than 7%.
Unilever, whose many
household brands include Dove soap, Hellmann’s mayonnaise and Lipton tea, joins a growing list of
companies that are boycotting Facebook for varying lengths of
time, including Verizon Communications Inc., Patagonia Inc., VF Corp., North
Face, Eddie Bauer and Recreational Equipment Inc.
“Based on the current
polarization and the election that we are having in the U.S., there needs to be
much more enforcement in the area of hate speech,” Luis Di Como, Unilever’s
executive vice president of global media, said.
“Continuing to advertise
on these platforms at this time would not add value to people and society,”
Unilever said. The ban also will cover Instagram.
Coca-Cola Co. went further than
most advertisers, announcing on Friday that it was pausing its global ad
spending on all social-media platforms for at least 30 days—including Facebook,
Instagram, Twitter, YouTube and Snap Inc.
“There is no place for
racism in the world and there is no place for racism on social media,”
Coca-Cola Chief Executive James Quincey said in a statement.
The Facebook advertising
boycott came after civil-rights
groups including the Anti-Defamation League and NAACP called on
brands to pull ad spending from Facebook for July. The groups said the
social-media giant hadn’t made enough progress battling hate speech and
misinformation.
Among the new measures Mr.
Zuckerberg announced Friday, the company will label posts that violate its
policies but are deemed newsworthy—giving Facebook the option of labeling
President Trump’s posts, as Twitter has done recently. Facebook will also put
in additional safeguards to prevent voter suppression and shield immigrants
from ads that depict them as inferior.
The groups calling for the
boycott, called Stop Hate for Profit, described the new policies as “a small
number of small changes.”
“We
have been down this road before with Facebook. They have made apologies in the
past. They have taken meager steps after each catastrophe where their platform
played a part. But this has to end now,” a statement said.
The group submitteda list
of 10 changes that it would prefer, including providing an audit and a refund
to advertisers whose ads are shown next to content that was later removed for
violating Facebook’s terms of service.
In a statement to the
Journal, Facebook said it invests billions of dollars every year to keep its
platform safe and has banned 250 white-supremacist organizations from Facebook
and Instagram. It said artificial intelligence helps it find nearly 90% of hate
speech before anyone flags it. “We know we have more work to do,” the company
said, adding that it would continue to work with Global Alliance for Responsible
Media—an ad-industry group created to improve the digital ecosystem, and of
which Unilever is a founding member—as well as other experts “to develop even
more tools, technology and policies to continue this fight.”
Twitter wasn’t a target of
the civil-rights group’s boycott call, but it has also come under scrutiny on
Madison Avenue.
“We have developed
policies and platform capabilities designed to protect and serve the public
conversation, and as always, are committed to amplifying voices from underrepresented
communities and marginalized groups,” said Sarah Personette, Twitter’s vice
president of Global Client Solutions, in a statement. “We are respectful of our
partners’ decisions and will continue to work and communicate closely with them
during this time.”
Facebook has taken some
steps in recent years to better police its platforms, adding workers and
developing new technology. That has resulted in the removal of hate speech and
other objectionable content.
“We acknowledge the
efforts of our partners, but there is much more to be done, especially in the
areas of divisiveness and hate speech during this polarized election period in
the U.S.,” Unilever said. “The complexities of the current cultural landscape
have placed a renewed responsibility on brands to learn, respond and act to
drive a trusted and safe digital ecosystem.”
Mr. Di Como said Unilever
would like to see a reduction in the level of hate speech on the platforms and
wants independent companies to measure and confirm that progress has been made.
Unilever, which is one of
the biggest ad spenders in the world, said it would shift its U.S. ad dollars
that have been earmarked for Facebook and Twitter to other media. Unilever
spent $42.3 million on Facebook ads in the U.S. last year, research company
Pathmatics Inc. estimates. Unilever declined to comment on its ad spending.
The big tech platforms
have been under increasing pressure—from politicians, outside groups, and their
own users—to crack down harder on misinformation and hate speech. Facebook, in
particular, has become a target because of its position that political speech,
including comments by President Donald Trump, generally shouldn’t be
fact-checked and removed.
Tensions have risen since
the widespread U.S. protests spurred by the killing of George Floyd, and the
resulting national dialogue about race and police brutality. But many concerns
about the platforms have been festering for years. The Anti-Defamation League,
for example, has long pushed Facebook to view Holocaust denial as a form of
hate speech.
Corporations, whose ad spending is the financial foundation for
tech giants, have applied pressure as well—sometimes quietly, behind the
scenes, sometimes in public. The latest boycott represents a substantial
escalation, especially with the addition of bigger players like Unilever and
Verizon. Verizon said it was pausing ads until Facebook can create a solution
that makes the company comfortable.
American Honda said Friday
it will pause advertising on Facebook and Instagram for the month of July.
Motives for joining such
boycotts can be all over the map. Some companies see a chance to get positive
attention for taking a stand on a social matter. Others are worried about their
brand’s association with controversial content—and, if history is a guide, they
may return to advertising when the dust settles. Some see an opportunity to
strike a blow at the powerful digital platforms.
And for others, ad
boycotts are a moral fight that is worth having even if it hurts their
business.
For many companies,
pulling ads off Facebook is a difficult proposition, because it is such an
efficient marketing vehicle and has so much data on consumers to help target
ads. Unilever said it isn’t removing Facebook and Twitter ads in non-U.S.
markets because the divisive content is currently more pronounced in the U.S.
Unilever has been a leader
in demanding that tech giants clean up the digital ad ecosystem. It has pushed
them to police advertising fraud and has been outspoken about the lack of
transparency in Facebook’s and Google’s metrics that show whether advertising
is working.
Unilever also has taken
stances on social issues: This week, it said it would discontinue
the name “Fair & Lovely” for its international
skin-lightening cream, acknowledging it reinforces the racist notion that light
skin is better. The product will still be sold. The company has also been
working to eliminate stereotypical portrayals of women in its advertising.
Procter
& Gamble Co., another
consumer products giant that is highly influential on Madison Avenue, said it
is reviewing all platforms on which it advertises for objectionable content.
Facebook is included in that review, according to a person familiar with the
matter. The company’s marketing chief, Marc Pritchard, on Wednesday vowed that
the company wouldn’t advertise “on or near content that we determine is
hateful, denigrating or discriminatory.”
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