The North Face becomes first largest major brand to join Facebook ad boycott

In a big blow to Mark Zuckerberg, The North Face on Friday became the highest-profile company in America to join several groups boycotting Facebook advertisements. The outdoor recreation company tweeted that it would join the campaign launched by several civil rights organizations earlier this week.

The Anti-Defamation League, NAACP, Sleeping Giants, Color Of Change, Free Press, and Common Sense are among the various organisations that called on companies to stop advertising on Facebook in the month of July to protest against the platform’s ‘failure to regulate hateful content’.

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The North Face vowed to suspend advertising on the platform immediately. In a statement dated June 19, the company announced it is halting all activities and paid advertisement with Facebook until the platform adopts stricter policies to stop racist, violent, or hateful content and misinformation spread. The company said it stands with NAACP and the other organisations that are working to ‘Stop Hate for Profit.’ (https://www.stophateforprofit.org/)

Several smaller companies in recent weeks have already suspended Facebook advertising, which generates roughly 98 percent of the company's revenue.

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Civil rights groups call for a pause on Facebook ads

The campaign comes amid rising scrutiny of Facebook's largely hands-off approach to political speech. The groups say that Facebook amplifies white supremacists, allows posts that incite violence and contain political propaganda and misinformation, and doesn’t stop “bad actors using the platform to do harm.”

They want to apply public pressure on Facebook to “stop generating ad revenue from hateful content, provide more support to people who are targets of racism and hate, and to increase safety for private groups on the platform.” The big tech companies have struggled over how to manage the floods of posts and videos that users put on their platforms every day.

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Facebook’s employees recently publicly criticised CEO Zuckerberg for deciding to leave up posts by President Donald Trump that suggested police-brutality protesters in Minneapolis could be shot. As it faces criticism for its policy of allowing politicians to post false information, including about voting, the company is launching an effort to boost US voter turnout.

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