Companies to Start Looking for Alternatives after Facebook Boycott

On Wednesday, advertisements some of the major brands including Coca-Cola, Starbucks, and more than 400 others have vanished from Facebook because of its last failure talks to stop a boycott over hate speech. The civil rights groups in the U.S. have enlisted the multinational companies to help create more pressure on the social media giant to take steps and block hate speech.

On Tuesday, Neil Potts, public policy director, and Carolyn Everson, vice president of global business solutions, along with other Facebook executives, held at least two meetings with advertisers. Even though the executives have offered no details on their plans to hate speech but instead pointed back to recent press releases.

Late on Tuesday, Facebook’s spokeswoman said that the Mark Zuckerberg, Chief Executive Offices, has agreed to meet with the organizers of the boycott. The civil rights groups include the NAACP, the Anti-Defamation League, and Color of Change that started the “Stop Hate for Profit” campaign.

Earlier this week, Facebook said that it would submit an audit to control its hate speech. This will add to plans to label newsworthy content by following practices similar to other social media platforms such as Twitter.

Some of the major Facebook executives have reached out to board members, other chief executives, and chief marketing officers of some of the major advertisers to talk them out of the boycott, two people told Reuters.

An executive at a major ad agency said that the boycott will be a major test for advertisers to reach billions of consumers without the help of the world’s largest social media platform.

Companies that make direct sales through Facebook are more beholden than those who are just looking to promote their brand image. Such companies hold the majority of companies that have joined the boycott including the multinational advertisers. They are now starting to plan how they can achieve the same goals without social media giant.