Facebook will soon feel the sting of an advertising boycott

Facebook just isn’t woke enough to just shut down President Trump and his supporters during this election season so companies have begun to pull their advertising dollars from the platform. Even after Facebook employees staged a virtual walkout and some resigned, so far the freedoms allowed in the First Amendment still apply to Trump.

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For weeks now, Facebook employees have been protesting against the company’s speech policy. President Trump’s posts on Facebook are seen by them to be hate speech, or threats of violence, and even voter-suppression tactics. This is what happens when the left doesn’t like what someone with an opposing view dares to say something. That person must be canceled, erased from public view. So, now companies are getting involved. There is an advertising boycott planned for the month of July.

A coalition of non-profit groups, including the NAACP, the Anti-Defamation League, and Sleeping Giants, have formed an organization called Stop Hate For Profit with a simple message. On its website, the group says, “We are asking all businesses to stand in solidarity with our most deeply held American values of freedom, equality and justice and not advertise on Facebook’s services in July.”

The site goes on to accuse Facebook of allowing violence to be incited against Black Lives Matter protesters and elevating news sites like Breitbart and The Daily Caller that have worked with white nationalists.

As you read, it isn’t just President Trump, it’s conservative media sites, too. This is why Facebook must be encouraged to continue to allow all voices on its platform. We already know that the employees aren’t even hiding their contempt for Trump and all conservatives. Give the authoritarian leftists an inch and they’ll take a mile.

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Earlier this month, Facebook announced that users will be able to block seeing all political ads. This is in response to critics who say the ads are full of lies.

Facebook and Instagram users will be able to turn off all social issue, electoral or political ads from candidates, Super PACs or other “organizations that have the ‘Paid for by’ political disclaimer on them.”

Facebook hopes to roll out the new feature to all U.S. users over the next few weeks and will aim to make it available in other countries where it monitors elections in the fall.

The company’s ad policy has been under fire from Democrats, namely the Biden campaign, since last year when Facebook doubled down on allowing politicians by lying in ads without being fact checked.

This is a bit different than what Twitter is doing. Twitter is banning political ads altogether. And we know it has taken a fancy to singling out President Trump’s tweets and slapping a warning on them for allegedly violating its policies. Funny, of all the ugly tweets on that site, only Trump’s tweets seem to deserve their new special warnings and Twitter gets publicity for its aggression against the most powerful man in the world.

On Friday, The North Face, an outdoor apparel brand, became the best-known name to join the Stop Hate for Profit boycott campaign. Just hours later, REI joined in, too.

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And then the recruiting company called Upwork followed REI. See how this works? Tweet out a boycott from Wokeville and the other companies just fall into line.

The North Face is also including Instagram in its boycott commitment. (Facebook owns Instagram.)

The North Face’s commitment applies to ads on Facebook and Facebook-owned Instagram, the brand said in a statement, though it will continue to create organic content on Instagram.

Craig Hodges, a spokesman for The North Face’s parent, VF Corp, said a number of other brands in the company’s portfolio are “considering” following in The North Face’s footsteps. VF Corp also owns Dickies, Vans, Timberland and Smartwool among others. For the year ended March 31, VF Corp spent $756 million on advertising.

“The North Face is halting all activity and U.S. paid advertising with Facebook until stricter policies are put in place to stop racist, violent or hateful content and misinformation from circulating on the platform,” the statement said.

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On Sunday Patagonia announced its support of the advertising boycott on both platforms.

“We will pull all ads on Facebook and Instagram, effective immediately, through at least the end of July, pending meaningful action from the social media giant,” the company said in a series of tweets on Sunday attributed to its head of marketing, Cory Bayers.

An advertising company is encouraging its clients to join in. You may want to keep an eye out to see if the companies join the herd of sheeple. Trump Derangement Syndrome is a hella drug.

Digital ad agency 360i, a division of Dentsu Group, said Thursday that it would encourage clients to support the boycott, saying in an email to them that the company “believes any social platform that earns profits by amplifying the voices of their community must have a zero tolerance policy for hate,” according to the Wall Street Journal.

360i’s clients include McCormick, Discover Financial Services, and Unilever, though it’s unclear if they will support the boycott. Several other ad companies have taken similar stances, and smaller companies have pulled advertising off of Facebook. Nike and Anheuser-Busch, two advertising giants, slashed their daily spending on Facebook and Instagram by $100,000 in early June.

Does a month-long advertising boycott from these companies threaten the viability of Facebook? No. There will be thousands of other companies who won’t pay any attention to the activist left in the retail world. Smaller companies depend on the advertising to promote their businesses. We just have to wait and see if the financial hit is big enough to cause Zuckerberg to cave to the demands of the mob.

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David Strom 4:40 PM | October 07, 2024
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