Leaders of Facebook boycott “Stop Hate for Profit” campaign finally met with the social media company’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg and other top executives. The leaders of the boycott campaign describe the meeting that held on Tuesday, 7th July 2020 as frustrating.
Organisers from Color of Change, Free Press, the NAACP, and the Anti-Defamation League held the meeting with Facebook for over one hour via videoconferencing app Zoom. The Facebook policy team, Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg and Chief Product Officer Chris Cox also took part in the meeting.
“The meeting that we just left was a disappointment. At this point, we were expecting a very clear answer to the demands we are making, and we did not get that,” according to Color of Change President, Rashad Robinson.
The organisers say Facebook was unwilling to make any solid commitments to any of their demands. Some of the demands include prohibiting calls to violence from politicians and removing white supremacy or Holocaust denial groups.
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The Anti-Defamation League president, Jonathan Greenblatt describes the meeting as “long on time but short on commitments.”
Facebook’s claim of removing 89% of hateful content didn’t bode as good enough for Greenblatt. Addressing it he said, “The Ford motor company can’t say that 89 percent of their seatbelts work”.
Greenblatt didn’t also enjoy Facebook’s seeming lack of commitment, saying; “The answer we heard was, ‘We’re on a journey, we’re doing better, we’re almost there. That’s not good enough.”
Facebook on its part brought its efforts in moderating harmful content to the fore. The social media giant highlighted efforts in banning specific white supremacist organizations and policies against voter and census misinformation.
“This meeting was an opportunity for us to hear from the campaign organizers and reaffirm our commitment to combating hate on our platform. They want Facebook to be free of hate speech and so do we. That’s why it’s so important that we work to get this right,” a Facebook spokesperson said.
The Stop Hate For Profit campaign had remarkable success in convincing advertisers to boycott Facebook. Big brands like Unilever, Viber, Coca-Cola, and about 400 other advertisers also joined the campaign in demanding better from Facebook.
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