Facebook boycott: Clorox pull ads through to end of the year

Clorox has joined the growing list of brands to have pulled its advertisements from Facebook in a protest over the social media giant’s perceived failure to stop the spread of hate speech on its platform.

The cleaning goods giant announced that it will be suspending all advertisements on the social media site through the end of the year, following suit with the likes of Ford, Denny’s, Adidas, Pepsi and Best Buy which all announced similar boycotts earlier this week.

‘As a people-centered company committed to our values, we feel compelled to take action against hate speech, which we believe will increase through the balance of the year,’ Clorox said in a Monday statement. ‘This creates an increasingly unhealthy environment for people and our purpose-driven brands.’

The Clorox Company, which also includes brands Hidden Valley Ranch and Brita, added that it would ‘maintain our planned level of advertising spending but shift to other media.’

Clorox has joined the growing list of brands to have pulled its advertisements from Facebook in a protest over the social media giant’s perceived failure to stop the spread of hate on its platform

Ford then on Monday also put the brakes on all national social-media advertising for 30 days, as it re-evaluates spending on sites. Restaurant chain Denny’s said it is pausing paid advertising on Facebook starting Wednesday.

More than 160 companies have all ceased advertising their products on Facebook in recent week as part of the Stop Hate for Profit campaign.

The boycott was organized by several civil rights groups, including the Anti-Defamation League, the NAACP and Sleeping Giants, who argue that Facebook and other social media platforms have not done enough to address racism and hate speech on their platforms.

Facebook makes an estimated $70 billion annually from ads, the coalition claimed in a statement on the ADL website.

On Friday, the mounting number of boycotting brands erased almost $60 billion from Facebook’s market value.

Coca-Cola pulled its advertisements from Facebook the same day, saying it wasn’t officially joining the boycott, but that it had paused on paid advertising across all social media platforms globally for at least 30 days.

‘We will take this time to reassess our advertising policies to determine whether revisions are needed. We also expect greater accountability and transparency from our social media partners,’ said James Quincey, Coca-Cola chairman and CEO.

Friday’s massive drop in valuation cut deep into Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s personal fortune, pushing him down from third to fourth place on Bloomberg Billionaires Index and leaving him with a new net worth of $82.3 billion.

A similar announcement was made by Unilever later Friday, which was then followed by Starbucks, who said it working with civil rights groups to ‘stop the spread of hate speech’ and would be ending all social media ads, but wasn’t officially joining the boycott at this time.