Last Updated on July 9, 2020
Despite the big tech company’s growing anti-conservative bias exposed by Project Veritas, Facebook plans to increase censorship after an advertiser exodus inspired by the three week old Stop Hate for Profit campaign.
Stop Hate for Profit was founded by a merger between the NAACP and the Defamation League. The “broader aim” of the Stop Hate for Profit campaign being to curb “hate speech, white supremacy and misinformation on Facebook.”
The Stop Hate For Profit campaign has successfully inspired major brands to abandon Facebook, with Adidas, Honda, Ben & Jerry’s, Campbell Soup Company, Chipotle, Chobani, and Coca-Cola, alongside many others, ceasing all advertising on the platform, until it sufficiently stops hate.
The campaign began as a grassroots effort when the platform did not censor President Donald Trump for promising to intervene in in Minneapolis, Minnesota following George Floyd’s death, writing in June that “when the looting starts, the shooting starts.”
Project Veritas previously exposed Facebook for refusing to take action on prominent conservatives like President Trump, allowing them to speak freely, and instead banning their supporters when they share the same sentiments.
“Being a platform where everyone can make their voice heard is core to our mission, but that doesn’t mean it’s acceptable for people to spread hate. It’s not,” says Facebook’s Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg on Tuesday as reported by Bloomberg.
Facebook “has to get better at finding and removing hateful content,” according to Sandberg. The post marked her first public comments about the issues raised by Stop Hate for Profit since they organized an advertising boycott last month.
Two years ago a civil rights audit was opened to review the ‘policies and practices’ of Facebook, and according to Facebook’s COO has made a ‘profound effect’ on the culture of the culture in the office.
“While we won’t be making every change they call for,” Sandberg says, “we will put more of their proposals into practice soon.”
Claims from Stop Hate for Profit indicate racial injustices towards particularly black users.
As stated on Tuesday by USA Today, this exposure of anti-black bias was “forged in the aftermath of George Floyd’s death while in Minneapolis police custody, this coalition of corporations and civil rights leaders has forced Facebook to reckon with the role it plays in perpetuating systemic racism and societal ills such as Holocaust denial.”
Sandberg claims that there is no correlation between the mass exodus of advertisers from the Facebook platform but a genuine desire do what is right.
“We are never going to be perfect, but we care about this deeply. We will continue to listen and learn and work in the weeks, months and years ahead.”
https://www.facebook.com/717545176/posts/10163750282810177/
The release of the two-year civil rights audit announcement did not dissuade Stop Hate for Profit from encouraging Facebook to hire a ‘civil rights executive’ who would be responsible for submissions of independent hate speech and misinformation hosted on Facebook.
Despite shares in Facebook taking a sharp plummet after the advertisers pulled off the platform they quickly recovered.
Project Veritas insider, Zach McElroy, weighed in on this drop and sudden rise in shares.
“I think it’ll I think it will be inconsequential for them financially.” According to McElroy, “the amount of money that they make compared to the money they’re gonna lose from this (mass exodus) is like nothing. It’s just an optics thing in my opinion”
