During recent years, not rarely, Facebook, the social media giant, has been the focus of investigation, scrutiny and serious pressure. The reason is traditionally the management of personal data and in particular their use for advertising purposes.
In all such cases though, it was national and regional institutional regulators exerting the pressure, acting in the name of the public interest. Recently, it’s major market players that have been urging Facebook to change its course, putting serious financial pressure through a boycott of the platform’s advertising services!
The «Stop Hate for Profit» campaign is calling on Facebook to censor / ban political ads that promote hate speech. Companies joining the campaign have been suspending their facebook ads spending as a means of pressure. And while Facebook has said it will not police political ads, the campaign has garnered the support of 160 companies, including “giants” such as Unilever. At the same time, companies such as Coca-Cola or Starbucks, although not officially participating in the boycott, have announced a temporary «pause» to their social media advertising until they decide on their further stance.
One can easily understand that with the US presidential election in the background of this whole conflict, the next few months are expected with great interest. What we should keep in mind, however, is the role that the market itself plays in policing the content of political advertisements by supplementing or – depending on one’s point of view – bypassing the institutional regulators whose effort to curb facebook is obviously considered inadequate…
