Several Brands Vow to Boycott Ad Purchases on Facebook Until Action is Taken

In the latest attempts to push Facebook's board into to holding themselves accountable for preventing the spread of disinformation campaigns and hateful speech on their platform, many companies that pour millions of dollars into Facebook advertisements are vowing to hold off purchasing ad spots at least until the end of July “pending meaningful action from the social media giant” (Patagonia tweets below).

Twitter has recently begun fact-checking President Donald Trump’s tweets which are now being labeled as true or false, citing sources that represent the true accuracy of the claim, and just a few days ago flagged one of the president’s tweets concerning recent police brutality protests with an “abusive behavior” label. Now it's Facebook's turn to respond to the demands of the public and decide how they will repackage our first amendment rights to free speech, to reflect new language expectations on their platform; that is if they even decide to address the complaints in the first place.

Social media has become the glue that binds people around the world together so that we may now communicate new facts and ideologies constantly with one another; which is even truer as of late with many people confined to their devices at home amidst the coronavirus pandemic. Given the power that Facebook has been proven to hold over citizens as they triage advertisements (their main force of income) many of which come from powerful organizations with varied agendas, the public has been in outcry demanding that Facebook do something to police hateful, harmful, and incorrect content. In capitalistic America, it is great to see so many organizations teaming up to hit Facebook where it hurts - their pockets, which earn $70 billion annually from their advertisement sales. The few organizations who have jumped in on the movement will barely make a dent in that revenue, but I hope to see more organizations jump in as the trend gains more traction over time.