Just optics, no action, Facebook ad boycott organisers say no progress on hate speech
Organizers of a good Facebook advertising boycott vowed to press on with their advertising campaign, saying the sociable network’s best executives had failed to offer meaningful actions on curbing hateful content material.
At a virtual assembly that included Facebook leader Mark Zuckerberg, the #StopHateForProfit coalition leaders “didn’t hear anything... to convince us that Zuckerberg and his co-workers are taking actions,” explained Jessica Gonzalez of the activist group Free Press, a coalition member.
Rashad Robinson, president of the activist group Color of Transformation, told reporters on a good conference call the assembly was “a disappointment.”
Robinson said the executives “showed up to the meeting expecting an A good for attendance,” but that “we did not get answers to concerns we placed on the table.”
The meeting was seen by Facebook as an chance to hear from boycott organizers and “reaffirm” a committed action to combating hate on the platform, a spokesperson told AFP.
“They want Facebook to be free from hate speech and so conduct we,” the spokesperson said, noting steps the social networking has taken up to ban white supremacist groups and fight interference with voting or the census.
“We know we are judged by our activities not by our phrases and are grateful to these groupings and many others for his or her continued engagement.”
The meeting occurred during a boycott which includes grown to almost 1,000 advertisers pressing for more aggressive action from Facebook on toxic and inflammatory content which promotes violence and hate-spurred by the wave of protests calling for social justice and racial equity.
“This isn’t over. We will continue steadily to expand the boycott until Facebook calls for our demands really. We won’t end up being distracted by Facebook’s spin today or any day time,” Gonzalez said.
Anti-Defamation League CEO Johnathan Greenblatt said of the meeting: “We saw little and heard nearly nothing.”
Greenblatt said the organizers had 10 specific needs for Facebook but “got no commitment or perhaps clear outcomes to some of them.”
A few of the activists express Facebook should do even more to curb disinformation from political leaders including President Donald Trump, and limit his feedback which critics mention promote violence and divisiveness.
Among posts which particularly roiled activists was Trump’s comment during widespread protests that “when the looting starts, the shooting starts,” which critics said was an incitement to violence.
Sandberg pledges more steps
Facebook features steadfastly refused to fact-check political speech and includes a largely hands-off insurance policy on comments from environment leaders.
But it has said it will take down comments that could lead to imminent injury, and recently updated a policy to label a content which violates its guidelines, even if it is permitted to remain online to be “newsworthy.”
Previous Tuesday, Facebook’s chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg pledged further more steps to eliminate toxic and hateful articles ahead of the discussions with the boycott organizers, led by the NAACP, Color of Switch and the Anti-Defamation League.
She added that the Silicon Valley giant would be announcing policy updates as a result of discussions with civil rights activists and its particular audit of civil rights practices.
“Facebook has to get better at locating and removing hateful articles,” Sandberg wrote.
“We are building changes-not for financial causes or advertiser pressure, but since it is the proper move to make.”
Sandberg said the final article of the independent civil rights audit would be published Wednesday carrying out a two-year review, and that would end up being used to steer Facebook policy changes.
“While the audit was planned and most of it carried out a long time before recent situations, its launching couldn’t come at a more important time,” she said.
“While we won’t end up being making every transformation they call for, we will put extra of their proposals into practice shortly.”
The auditors are place to issue scathing criticism of Facebook, according to The NY Times, which obtained a draft.
“Unfortunately, inside our view Facebook’s approach to civil rights remains also reactive and piecemeal,” the draft says according to the Times.
“The Auditors usually do not think that Facebook is sufficiently attuned to the depth of concern on the problem of polarization and just how that the algorithms employed by Facebook inadvertently fuel extreme and polarizing content.”
