Ad boycott won’t give Facebook the comeuppance it deserves

As much as Facebook deserves a comeuppance for its years of egregious behavior, the social media company probably won’t suffer long-term from the July ad boycott.

Nor change its shameful ways.

Meanwhile, CEO and founder Mark Zuckerberg continues to rake in his billions.

Despite the boycott, the price of the company’s stock, which dropped 1.7% Thursday, ended far ahead of where it started the week. History shows that advertising boycotts usually don’t work.

Zuckerberg knows this. He reportedly told employees that his “guess is that all these advertisers will be back on the platform soon enough.” Which is why he talks big about doing the right thing but, ultimately, focuses on the bottom line.

He announced some policy changes a week ago designed to crack down on disinformation and hate content. Facebook will now start labeling content that violates its policies. But it will leave the posts on its site if “the public interest value outweighs the risk of harm.”

In other words, Facebook has no problem publishing material on its platform that it knows is false or crosses the line as hate speech.

Civil rights groups began the #StopHateForProfit campaign in June, calling on companies to cease advertising on Facebook for the month of July unless the company changed its ways. Hundreds of companies jumped on board.

Their primary concern remains Facebook’s hands-off approach to President Donald Trump’s incendiary posts about George Floyd protesters and his repeated false statements about mail-in voting.

Facebook generated 98% of its $70 billion in revenues last year from advertising. Even if every one of Facebook’s 100 biggest advertisers joined the boycott, it would still account for only 6% of the company’s annual ad revenue.

If nothing else, the #StopHateForProfit campaign has been hugely successful in highlighting Facebook’s irresponsible behavior. We only wish the movement could make Zuckerberg change his ways.

— The Mercury News