Soon after brands like Unilever, Honda and Verizon came up with the news of temporarily withdrawing advertisements on Facebook, Starbucks also joined the bandwagon and said that they will pause all paid advertisements on social media to help stop hate speech.
More than 160 companies have decided to stop buying ads on the largest social media network, Facebook. These companies have joined this campaign to prevent content that is violent and racist that circulating widely in these platforms. According to Starbucks one of the best ways to stop hate speech and racist content is to stop paid advertising on these social media platforms. Although Starbucks did not name Facebook in particular, this move by Starbucks comes as a growing movement against social media, as these sites are not doing anything to stop hate speech happening in its platforms.
In a recent report on Sunday by CNBC, they said that they will not stop advertising on YouTube (owned by Alphabet, Google) and will also continue to post non – paid ads on Social media. The statement released by the company said that they will have discussions with civil rights partners, media, etc. to stop the hate speech. They also pointed out that by doing so they are not joining the “Stop Hate for Profit” campaign. This campaign was launched by advocacy groups, with the aim to put pressure on social media to remove racist content from their platforms. They are planning to do so by asking companies to stop paid advertisements on these sites for the month of July.
Facebook on a total receives 70 billion on an annual just based on advertisement and by pausing the ads the companies and advertisements agencies can show their protests against these hateful messages. Facebook acknowledged the growing pressure on a call with advertisers last week, where a Facebook executive admitted there is a “trust deficit” with its clients on the platform.
As Social media are used by millions of people these days, we can hope for these social media sites after considering the corporate social responsibility to show a good example for these people.
