Facebook is seeing a growing boycott by advertisers unhappy with its handling of misinformation and hate speech, including its laissez-faire attitude toward recent posts from President Donald Trump, The New York Times informed. Shares of Mark Zuckerberg’s social media company fell 8.3% on Friday, the most in three months, and according to estimates, it could be losing $7.2 billion amid the boycott.
The effort gained traction earlier in June amid pressure from civil rights organizations like the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the Anti-Defamation League. Color of Change, one of the groups backing the boycott, said that nearly 100 advertisers have joined.
Many of the participants are small businesses, which make up the bulk of Facebook’s eight million advertisers. But recently, several large companies that spend millions of dollars a year on the platform have also distanced themselves. Some are also halting their advertising from Twitter and other social media sites, along with Facebook’s platforms.
“We invest billions of dollars each year to keep our community safe and continuously work with outside experts to review and update our policies,” a Facebook spokesman said. “We know we have more work to do,” he added.
Some of the major advertisers that are limiting or stopping their advertising on Facebook are: Beam Suntory ($604,500 spent last year on Facebook ads), Birchbox ($947,100), Coca-Cola ($22.1 million), Hershey’s ($36.5 million), Honda America ($6 million), JanSport ($742,800), Levi Strauss & Company ($2.8 million), The North Face ($3.3 million), Patagonia ($6.2 million), Starbucks ($94.9 million), Unilever ($42.4 million), and Verizon ($22.9 million), among many others.
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