Zuckerberg meeting with Facebook advertising boycott leaders Tuesday
Campaign wants Facebook to change its policies surrounding hate speech and language that incites violence
Facebook Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg and Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg will meet Tuesday afternoon with civil rights leaders in charge of the "Stop Hate for Profit" advertising boycott.
Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt will be in the meeting, which is set for 2 p.m. Eastern time and will be virtual, an ADL spokesman told FOX Business. It's unclear who the other participants will be, but the ADL partnered with the NAACP, Sleeping Giants, Color Of Change, Free Press and Common Sense to launch the boycott last month.
The boycott, which involves hundreds of companies at this point, started Wednesday. The campaign wants Facebook to change its policies surrounding hate speech and language that incites violence. Facebook said Monday that it actually has common ground with the creators of the boycott.
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"We share the goal of these organizations; we don’t benefit from hate and we don't want it on our platforms. We look forward to hearing directly from these organizations, and to sharing an update on the investments we've made and the work we’re continuing to do," a Facebook spokesperson told FOX Business.
Facebook did make a change on June 26, saying it would start flagging some political content that violates its policies, but “Stop Hate for Profit” said in an update last Monday that the changes are insufficient.
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A Facebook spokesperson told FOX Business last week that the company won’t capitulate to the boycott’s demands.
“We take these matters very seriously and respect the feedback from our partners. We’re making real progress keeping hate speech off our platform, and we don't benefit from this kind of content,” a Facebook spokesperson said in a statement to FOX Business on Wednesday. “But as we've said, we make policy changes based on principles, not revenue pressures."
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Zuckerberg has touted free expression and criticized censorship in the past, sparking backlash inside and outside his company.
“I tend to think that if someone goes out there and threatens you to do something, that actually kind of puts you in a box where in some ways it’s even harder to do what they want because now it looks like you’re capitulating, and that sets up bad long-term incentives for others to do that [to you] as well,” Zuckerberg said in a video town hall on June 26, according to a transcript of the meeting obtained by The Information.
Facebook's executives may not need to worry about the boycott eating into the company's profits for now. Facebook says it has seven million active advertisers, which netted them $70 billion in advertising revenue last year. Huge advertisers like Starbucks and Pepsi have joined the boycott, but there are less than 1,000 total companies taking part as of Thursday.