Battle Lines Drawn - A pinch where it hurts: Can Facebook weather the ad boycott?

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But whether Zuckerberg agrees to further tighten the social network’s carefully crafted rules probably boils down to a more fundamental question: Does Facebook need big brand advertisers more than the brands need Facebook?

In a broad sense, the current boycott, which will last at least a month, is like nothing Facebook has experienced before. Following weeks of protests against police violence and racial injustice, major brands have for the first time joined together to protest still-prevalent hate speech on Facebook’s platforms by taking aim at the social network’s $70 billion in annual ad revenue. After years of piecemeal measures to address hate, abuse and misinformation on its service, Facebook’s critics hope that pinching the company where it hurts will push it toward more meaningful change. As of Wednesday, 530 companies have signed on — and that’s not counting businesses like Target and Starbucks, which have paused advertising but did not formally join the “Stop Hate for Profit” campaign, which calls its action a “pause” rather than a boycott.

“Many businesses told us how they had been ignored when asking Facebook for changes,” campaign organizers wrote in a letter to advertisers this week. “Together, we finally got Facebook’s attention.” But Facebook’s already-tarnished public image may sustain more damage than its business. If the ad pause lasts one month, Citi Investment Research analyst Jason Bazinet estimates, the likely impact on Facebook’s stock will be $1 per share. Based on Wednesday’s closing price of $237.92, that’s a decline of less than half a percent. If the businesses extend their boycott indefinitely, Bazinet suggests the likely impact would be $17 a share, or about a 7% decline. That’s less than the 8% drop Facebook shares sustained on Friday after global consumer-products maker Unilever said it would pause advertising on Facebook and Instagram for the rest of the year.

Nick Clegg, Facebook’s VP of global affairs and communications, tried to reassure businesses that Facebook “does not benefit from hate” and said the company has every incentive to remove hate speech from its service. He acknowledged that “many of our critics are angry about the inflammatory rhetoric President Trump has posted on our platform and others, and want us to be more aggressive in removing his speech.”

Clegg, however, offered few concessions, and instead repeated Zuckerberg’s frequent talking point that “the only way to hold the powerful to account is ultimately through the ballot box.” He pointed to Facebook’s get-out-the-vote efforts as evidence of the company’s commitment, along with the billions of dollars, tens of thousands of content moderators and other investments it has made in trying to improve its platform. While Facebook is making efforts to hear out its critics, it remains clear that ultimate decisions will always rest with its founder and CEO, who holds the majority of the company’s voting shares and could effectively run the company for life, should he desire to. It’s not clear that he’ll see any reason to bend further to meet protesters’ demands. “Data of past boycotts suggests the impact is relatively mild,” said Brian Wieser, global president of business intelligence at GroupM, advertising holding company WPP’s media agency arm.

Associated Press