WASHINGTON - Facebook on Tuesday pledged to take further steps to remove toxic and hateful content from the leading social network as its top executives were set to meet with organizers of a mushrooming ad boycott.
Chief executive Mark Zuckerberg and chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg were to speak with leaders of the #StopHateForProfit campaign which has garnered more than 900 advertisers pausing their campaigns on Facebook.
Sandberg said she and Zuckerberg would hold a virtual meeting with the boycott organizers led by the NAACP, Color of Change and the Anti-Defamation League, which have been pressuring Facebook to do more to remove content that promotes racism and violence.
The two executives also planned to consult later Tuesday with other civil rights leaders including the head of its own civil rights audit.
The meetings come "in the context of what may be the largest social movement in US history, and our nation's best and latest chance to act against the racism that has pervaded our country," Sandberg said on her Facebook page.
She added that the Silicon Valley giant will be announcing policy updates as a result of discussions with civil rights activists and its own audit of civil rights practices.
"We are making changes -- not for financial reasons or advertiser pressure, but because it is the right thing to do," Sandberg wrote.
"We have worked for years to try to minimize the presence of hate on our platform. That's why we agreed to undertake the civil rights audit two years ago."
Sandberg said the final report of audit would be published Wednesday following a two-year review, and that this would be used to guide Facebook policy changes.
"While the audit was planned and most of it carried out long before recent events, its release couldn't come at a more important time," she said.
"It has helped us learn a lot about what we could do better, and we have put many recommendations from the auditors and the wider civil rights community into practice.
"While we won't be making every change they call for, we will put more of their proposals into practice soon."
The boycott organizers are seeking a top-level executive to evaluate "products and policies for discrimination, bias, and hate," as well as independent audits of "identity-based hate and misinformation."
Agence France-Presse
US telecoms giant Verizon joined the growing list of brands vowing to stop buying advertising on Facebook on Thursday over its perceived failure to crack down on hate speech and incitements to violence.
"We're pausing our advertising until Facebook can create an acceptable solution that makes us comfortable and is consistent with what we've done with YouTube and other partners," said John Nitti, Verizon chief media officer.
Multiple companies -- most recently Ben & Jerry's -- have announced they will halt advertising purchases in July after the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) called for the boycott as part of the "Stop the Hate for Profit" campaign.
Facebook's "hate speech, incitement, and misinformation policies are inequitable," ADL chief executive Jonathan Greenblatt said in a letter Thursday.
Greenblatt noted the social media giant's "haphazard" placement of advertising, pointing to an example in which a Verizon ad appeared next to "a video from the conspiracy group QAnon drawing on hateful and anti-Semitic rhetoric."
Facebook is under increasing pressure for its hands-off approach to misinformation and inflammatory posts, particularly by US President Donald Trump.
The social media company made an estimated $70 billion annually from ads, the coalition -- which includes the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) -- behind #StopHateForProfit claimed in a statement on the ADL website.
"We respect any brand's decision, and remain focused on the important work of removing hate speech and providing critical voting information," said Facebook's Carolyn Everson, vice president of global marketing solutions.
Sporting goods makers Patagonia, North Face and REI, as well as the freelance staffing agency Upwork have all said they would boycott Facebook.
Also on Friday, messaging app Viber announced it would cut business ties with Facebook, removing Facebook touchpoints on its app and halting ads.
Agence France-Presse
WASHINGTON - US ice-cream giant Ben & Jerry's said it will stop buying advertising space on Facebook, joining a growing list of prominent brands boycotting the social network over its perceived failure to crack down on hate speech and incitements to violence.
"As of July 1st we will pause all paid advertising on Facebook and Instagram in the United States," the Vermont-based confectioner said Tuesday.
The company added it was also joining the "Stop the Hate for Profit" initiative supported by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and other rights groups.
"We call on Facebook, Inc. to take the clear and unequivocal actions called for by the campaign to stop its platform from being used to spread and amplify racism and hate," Ben & Jerry's said.
It is the latest company to pledge to halt ad spending on Facebook over concerns hate speech and incitement to violence are not being moderated on the platform.
Sporting goods maker Patagonia added its name to the list Sunday, joining rivals North Face and REI and the freelance staffing agency Upwork.
The #StopHateForProfit campaign comes as Facebook faces growing pressure over its hands-off approach to misinformation and inflammatory posts, including from US President Donald Trump.
The social media company made an estimated $70 billion annually from ads, the coalition claimed in a statement on the ADL website.
The campaign has criticized Zuckerberg's decision to not moderate the US president, after the CEO again defended his decision not to limit Trump's often controversial, incendiary and inaccurate posts.
Twitter's decision in May to hide one of Trump's tweets for "glorifying violence" exposed turmoil at Facebook, with employees rebelling against Zuckerberg's refusal to sanction false or inflammatory posts by the president.
Facebook last week said it removed ads by Trump's re-election campaign that contained a symbol used in Nazi Germany for political prisoners, a move welcomed by rights activists.
Agence France-Presse
