Mark Zuckerberg informed his employees that he would not suffer himself to be influenced by the extensive boycott advertising against its platform led by organizations and advertisers, including Coca-Cola and Starbucks, which require a regulation more strict racist content and hate speech. "We will not change our rules or our approach to anything because of a threat against a small percentage of our revenue, or against any percentage of our revenues," said the boss of Facebook during a company meeting last Friday, the 26th of June. These remarks were reported by the media The Information and confirmed by the group.
Adidas, Puma, Levis, Coca-Cola, Starbucks, Ford, Unilever (Lipton, Magnum, Dove, etc)... More than 400 companies have suspended their purchases of ads on the social network to $ 1.73 billion daily users. "In my opinion, these advertisers will be back soon enough on the platform," added Mark Zuckerberg, who sees a problem and "reputation" more than economic.
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"We take these matters very seriously and respect the feedback from our partners," assured a spokesman of the group to the Agence France-Presse. "We made a lot of progress to stop the hate on our platform and we do not profit from this kind of content. But as we have said, we evolve our rules according to our principles, not pressure on our revenues. "
far-right groups banned
originally, the call for a boycott of one month has been launched by associations, including the NAACP, the great organization of defense of civil rights of African-Americans, and an organization fighting anti-semitism, the Anti-Defamation League, in a context of a broad movement against systemic racism in the United States. Facebook has met these civil society organizations "because they have made specific requests for our products," said the spokesperson.
Without tacking, the california firm, which has invested in the moderation of content in recent years, had appeared to make proof of good will these last few days. She has particular banned group claiming to be the sphere of influence of the extreme american right, " Boogaloo ", whose adherents, heavily armed, have repeatedly attempted to disrupt protests anti-racist.
The platform will now also remove more of types of advertisements to " incite hatred ", and hide the messages considered problematic policies, until now tolerated.
