Nam Y. Huh/AP Photo
Starbucks is among the corporate advertisers that paused social media ads after a campaign led by civil rights organizations called for an ad boycott of Facebook.
In this moment of wildcat strikes, one of the largest collective-bargaining actions in the United States is being led by large corporations. Advertisers have initiated a boycott against Facebook, at the urging of civil rights groups. Ford, Hershey’s, Clorox, Starbucks, Verizon, Coca-Cola, HP, Levi Strauss, Honda, Pepsi, Microsoft, Vans, Pfizer, Adidas, and hundreds more have suspended their advertising on Facebook and Instagram. The #StopHateforProfit campaign is demanding that Facebook do a better job controlling hate speech on its platforms. Facebook has promised once again to clean up its act, but that hasn’t stopped the pressure.
It’s interesting that large corporations see value in using their power as purchasers to force changes, something their own customers might want to note for the future. And seeing Mark Zuckerberg in the crosshairs of a capital strike has a delightful quality to it. But let’s be clear: This is a cosmetic PR move from a corporate sector looking for simple, performative solutions to deep-seated persecution. Multinationals are trying to buy off protesters with empty symbols of solidarity and diversity training seminars. People are in the streets over far more than that.
It’s very unclear whether this advertising boycott represents anything close to a sacrifice for advertisers. First off, most of the brands are pausing Facebook ads only until the end of July, a one-month “sacrifice” that’s less than meets the eye. No brand that I’ve seen has suggested a permanent end to social media ads. Furthermore, nearly all of these brands have seen weakening revenues and need to find cuts to keep earnings robust. A temporary “furlough” of Facebook ads offers a good way to hang on to more of their funds.
As to whether a one-month pause hurts Facebook, as long as there are politicians in election season, there will be a tremendous revenue stream. Besides, Facebook makes most of its money off small, local businesses, not large advertisers.
Plus, there’s the little matter of whether a targeted Facebook ad, which tracks users and sorts them into exploitable categories, gives any value to advertisers at all. Procter & Gamble, the world’s biggest advertiser, cut its digital ad budget by $200 million in 2018, two years before this boycott, after estimating that the average viewing time for a mobile ad on Facebook was just 1.7 seconds.
Facebook has been misreporting almost every audience measurement to advertisers for years, from time spent reading to referral traffic to the definition of a “minute” of video viewing, which under its calculations didn’t have to be consecutive. In 2016, Facebook revealed it inflated its average watch time on video ads by dropping out video views under three seconds, and failed to disclose this to advertisers for a year. The video stats were inflated by as much as 900 percent. In 2017, Facebook claimed its ads reached 25 million more young people in the U.S. than existed in the entire country at the time.
Not only is the strategy behind the boycott dubious, so is the solution it proposes. The idea seems to be that Facebook should actively intervene to make its platform less hostile, removing hate, bigotry, racism, misinformation, and violence. As a private platform, Facebook can in theory engage in whatever moderation it wishes. The problem is really the company’s dominance: It looks like censorship to those thrown off because Facebook holds such power over communications. This affects the manageability of the platform too: Facebook is simply too big to moderate, and its algorithmic efforts have failed.
The answer that can actually deal with these platforms is, of course, to break up Facebook, but also to ban targeted advertising. Changing Facebook’s surveillance-based business model would end the incentive toward mass data collection, return the specialness of unique audiences cultivated by publishers, and limit the click-bait dynamic that exists to hook users and scrape their personal information. The answer is certainly not to “pause” advertising until Facebook comes up with a minimally tolerable fig leaf that advertisers can wave around and declare victory.
This attempt to come up with a plausible narrative of progress, rather than rooting out structural failings, comprises a familiar tactic from those holding power. It’s why the Facebook boycott is a microcosm of the bid to resolve a month of protests over racism with distractions.
I don’t know about you, but I didn’t see the death of George Floyd as an opportunity to at long last give Black actors the opportunity to voice characters on long-running cartoons. Politics and culture have become intertwined, no doubt, but this virtue signaling mimics the stances of advertisers in the Facebook boycott. Brands can strut around, express support, and take actions that fall rather short of being meaningful. It gives the impression that centuries of racism can be solved by HR directives and “White Fragility” book clubs. It’s what happens when a corporate giant throws a few bucks at charity or names a stadium “Climate Pledge Arena.” It attempts to wave away dissent without personal cost.
The corporate response represents an attempt to get off cheap, to purchase goodwill with the fewest coins possible. It takes a cry for change and diverts it into a logo.
The real issue, as Prospect alum Jamelle Bouie explained well last week, is the economic and social dislocation of people of color. Corporate executives will not put out press releases on overhauling the foundations of oppression as long as they think they can get away with taking Aunt Jemima syrup off store shelves and putting a Black Lives Matter emoji on Twitter and leaving it at that.
This is hardly what the protesters have been demanding. They continue to be out there a month after protests began, calling for an end to police brutality and the structures that underlie racial inequality. The corporate response represents an attempt to get off cheap, to purchase goodwill with the fewest coins possible. It takes a cry for change and diverts it into a logo.
This is bigger than Facebook. We have an unending stream of problems that require solutions more than an inch deep. Good press releases will not support Black lives, and we shouldn’t pretend that they will. A movement as popular and cross-racial as what we’ve seen in the past month becomes enamored of hollow, insincere gestures at its peril. Actual change doesn’t come so easily.
I will say this, however: These Facebook-boycotting corporations are showing that they believe in the power of joining together as one to make a difference. The workers at these companies, many of them facing historical hurdles to collective bargaining, should take some notes.
