London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Saturday, Aug 22, 2026

With Facebook hemorrhaging advertisers, CEO agrees to meet with boycott organizers

With Facebook hemorrhaging advertisers, CEO agrees to meet with boycott organizers

Advertisers flee over the platform's tolerance of hate speech and disinformation. Is Zuckerberg about to cave?
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg agreed on Wednesday to meet with civil rights groups that have successfully organized a massive corporate boycott against the social media platform for its hate speech policies.

Zuckerberg will be joined by Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg and Chief Product Officer Chris Cox, according to a report by Bloomberg. The meeting will be held after Zuckerberg reached out to civil rights groups including the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the Anti-Defamation League and Color of Change.

A number of businesses have engaged in an ad boycott against Facebook to protest the company's tepid response to hate speech on its site. These businesses include Coca-Cola, Starbucks, The Clorox Company, Denny's, Volkswagen, Chobani, Kind Snacks, Ford, Adidas, Blue Bottle Company, Microsoft, Colgate-Palmolive, Eddie Bauer, Honda, Kush Queen, Levi's, Patagonia, Sesame Workshop, Unilever and Verizon.

In addition to controversies surrounding the company allowing President Donald Trump to use its platform to disseminate hate speech — particularly leaving up a post about the George Floyd protests saying "when the looting start, the shooting starts" — the company has also been criticized for allowing hate speech that contributed to a 2017 genocide against Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar and for the fact that a terrorist used the site to livestream mosque shootings in New Zealand last year. The company has also done little if anything to crack down on misinformation about the George Floyd protests, and has enlisted fringe right-wing news site The Daily Caller as a fact-checking partner; it also lists the right-wing nationalist site Breitbart News as a "trusted" source.

The boycott movement, known as Stop Hate for Profit, skewered Facebook with a series of rhetorical question:

Last week a Facebook company spokesperson defended the organization to Salon when asked about the boycotting actions of Verizon and Unilever, two huge corporations who were withholding advertising dollars.

"We invest billions of dollars each year to keep our community safe and continuously work with outside experts to review and update our policies," the representative told Salon. "We've opened ourselves up to a civil rights audit, and we have banned 250 white supremacist organizations from Facebook and Instagram. The investments we have made in AI mean that we find nearly 90% of Hate Speech we action before users report it to us, while a recent EU report found Facebook assessed more hate speech reports in 24 hours than Twitter and YouTube."

The company added, "We know we have more work to do, and we'll continue to work with civil rights groups, GARM, and other experts to develop even more tools, technology and policies to continue this fight."

Facebook's both-sidesism over misinformation and hate rhetoric has put it at odds with other major tech companies. Twitter has recently begun to hold President Donald Trump accountable for some of his problematic tweets, prompting the president to retaliate against the company with an executive order. Since then Twitch, a popular video streaming service associated with the gaming community, temporarily suspended President Donald Trump's account after the company accused Trump of violating their policies on hate. And on Monday, Reddit banned a popular pro-Trump forum called r/The_Donald along with roughly 2,000 other forums, while YouTube banned explicitly white supremacist channels including those run by American Renaissance, David Duke, Stefan Molyneux and Richard Spencer.
Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
Petrol Bombs Set Luxury Cars Alight Outside Birmingham Wedding as Police Hunt Three Men
Bitcoin Surges Toward $80,000 as Short Squeeze and ETF Inflows Ignite Crypto Rally
Prince Harry and Co-Claimants Ordered to Pay £9.5 Million Toward Daily Mail Publisher’s Legal Costs
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle Reportedly Plan Return to Britain With Their Children
UK Court Ruling Threatens Deportation Plans for Potential Trafficking Victims to Albania
Kemi Badenoch Presses UK Government for Decisions on Rosebank and Jackdaw Oil Fields
UK Foreign Affairs Committee Chair Calls for Ban on Goods from Occupied West Bank
Andy Burnham Government to Place Civil Servants Directly in English Mayoral Offices
Met Office Warns Major El Niño Could Bring Stormier, Wetter Autumn to UK
UK Economy Gains Unexpected Momentum Ahead of Andy Burnham Government’s First Budget
Twenty-Nine US States Take Meta to Trial Over Alleged Child Addiction on Instagram and Facebook
Former Scottish National Party Executive Peter Murrell Jailed for Five Years Over £400,000 Embezzlement
Moderna and Merck's Personalized Cancer Vaccine Succeeds in Historic Late-Stage Melanoma Trial
Prince Harry and Meghan to Move Back to Britain With Their Children
England and Wales Have Fewer Than 1,800 Prison Places Left for Men
Royal Navy to Accelerate DragonFire Laser Deployment Against Growing Drone Threat
Northern Ireland Approves Five Hundred Million Pound Belfast Harbour Expansion
Great British Railways Takes Full Control of Avanti West Coast as Rail Nationalisation Reaches Final Stage
UK AI Safety Institute Calls for Mandatory Security Audits of Advanced AI Models
Scotland Secures Three Billion Pounds for Floating Offshore Wind Hub in Aberdeen
Government Overrides Local Councils to Approve Green Belt Housing Across Southern England
UK and EU Move Toward Mutual Recognition of Food Standards to Ease Cross-Channel Trade
Government Plans Multibillion-Pound Private Healthcare Expansion to Cut NHS Surgical Backlogs
Bank of England Signals Faster Rate Cuts as Inflation Falls Below the Two Percent Target
Suspected People Smuggler Arrested After Investigation Identified Him
Children's Doctors Warn That Vaping Can Lead Young People to Smoking
Hundreds of Thousands of Students Receive GCSE and Vocational Results Across England, Wales and Northern Ireland
Here Is What Can Never Happen in Your Country: Taiwan Is Giving Money to All Its People Because It Collected Too Much Tax
UK Inflation Rises to 2.9% as Energy Bills Jump
UK Issues New Conduct Guide for Asylum Seekers on Consent and Respect
Moderna Shares Surge After Positive Personalized Skin Cancer Trial Results
UK Markets Watch US National Debt Surpass Forty Trillion Dollars
UK Broadcasters Urge Government to Invest in Digital Participation and Broadband
CVC Capital Partners and Standard Life Launch Two Billion Pound Pension Risk Transfer Venture
UK Private Sector Productivity Growth Accelerates in Second Quarter
UK Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband Condemns Israeli E1 Settlement Tender
UK Watchdog Investigates Trainline, Virgin Atlantic and RED Driving School Over Hidden Fees
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle Plan Move to Private Home Outside London
UK Retail Sentiment Improves as Summer Spending Boosts Consumer Confidence
UK Aid Cuts Draw Warnings From Charities Over Humanitarian Consequences
UK Financial Conduct Authority Issues Guidance for Motor Finance Redress Scheme
UK Met Office Launches Aviation Programme to Reduce Climate Impact of Persistent Contrails
Former UK Civil Service Chief Received Record 500,000 Pound Severance Payment
West Midlands to Bring Bus Network Under Public Franchising Model
UK Government Drops Plan to Relax Affordable Housing Requirements After Backlash
UK Reaffirms Military Support for Ukraine Despite Russian Hybrid Warfare Threats
UK Technology Sector Expands Nearly 8 Percent as Digital Industry Outpaces Wider Economy
UK Drought Threatens Harvests Across England and Wales as Food Inflation Risks Persist
UK Government Pledges 442 Million Pounds to End Rough Sleeping by Christmas
UK Government Signals Willingness to Reconsider Digital Services Tax Amid US Tariff Threats
×