Facebook's Advertiser Revolt

Pigheadedness best describes Mark Zuckerberg. Perhaps, that's because the Facebook CEO has always been too full of himself. 

Worse, he has shown to be ever so willing to drop on his knees in order to kiss the ass of the President of the United States of America. 

He had regularly refused to flag false and incendiary statements from Donald Trump. 

Even when his own employees staged a 'virtual' walkout and called on the company to do more to address hate speech and incitement to violence – not just from Trump but also hate groups – he had stood his ground. 

As recently as last week, he even stoutly defended Trump’s posts as being “legitimate”. 

Advocacy groups including the Anti-Defamation League, the NAACP and Color Of Change started “Stop Hate for Profit” on Wednesday to pile pressure on Zuckerberg's money spinning machine – and asking advertisers to pause all spending with Facebook for the month of July. 

Arc'teryx, Ben & Jerry’s, Eileen Fisher, Magnolia Pictures, Patagonia, REI, The North Face, Upwork and Verizon are amongst companies that gave their support and snubbed the tech company. 

On Thursday, the boycott grew beyond advertisers. Chat app Viber, which allows 100 million of its billion-plus users around the world to log in with their Facebook accounts, announced plans to cut ties with the social network entirely, removing all Facebook code from their service. 

Joy Howard, chief marketing officer of the password manager Dashlane, another participant in the boycott, said: “Facebook is not committed to change. They will only say what money makes them say. It’s time for us to put our money where their mouth is”. 

[Note: Facebook make $70.7 billion in annual advertising revenue]. 

As pressure piles on the social media site, Zuckerberg announced tweaks to a number of policies on Friday – hours after Unilever said they too would pull their advertisements from the social media platform for the next six months (BUT only in the US). 

That announcement was too little too late. It did not halt companies’ demands for change. On that same day, Coca-Cola, Hershey's, Honda, JanSport, Levi Strauss, Lululemon and Starbucks joined the more than 100 brands boycotting advertising on Facebook.

James Quincey, chairperson and CEO of The Coca-Cola Company said: “There is no place for racism in the world and there is no place for racism on social media” – and that social media companies need to provide “greater accountability and transparency”. 

In fact, Zuckerberg’s purported changes don’t go nearly far enough. 

More pressure must come to bear on Facebook to cease and desist “amplifying the messages of white supremacists” and “permitting incitement to violence”. 

And it's about time that Zuckerberg calls Trump out because he is a racist and a fascist, period.