A campaign group operating under the hashtag "Stop Hate For Profit" has severely dented the market value of Facebook and Twitter. The group is calling on advertisers to suspend advertising with the social media giants until they reform their practices. In particular, the group wants sites to be stricter in their moderation of posts the group deems to be hate speech and misinformation. The value of Facebook's stock plummeted by eight per cent last Friday as Unilever halted its advertising. A three per cent drop followed on Monday as major brands such as Starbucks and Coca Cola said they would pause spending on the social media platform. Facebook's value has nosedived by around $60 billion.
The Stop Hate For Profit campaign got going on June the 17th after several civil rights groups and non-profit watchdogs collaborated. They formulated a campaign to get social media platforms to address problems and biases in the way they moderate content. They called for an advertising boycott and asked advertisers to, "hit pause on hate". They said: "We are asking all businesses to stand in solidarity with our most deeply held American values of freedom, equality and justice and not advertise on [these] services in July." Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg responded by announcing a series of new policies, including a ban on hateful content and on posts making false claims about voting.
