Facebook frustrates advertisers as boycott over hate speech kicks off

FACEBOOK - NEW YORK/SAN FRANCISCO. Advertisements for more than 400 brands including Coca-Cola and Starbucks vanished from Facebook on Wednesday, after the failure of last-ditch talks to stop a boycott over hate speech on the site.

U.S. civil rights groups have enlisted the multinationals to help pressure the social media giant into taking concrete steps to block hate speech in the wake of the death of George Floyd and amid a national reckoning over racism.

Facebook executives including Carolyn Everson, vice president of global business solutions, and Neil Potts, public policy director, held at least two meetings with advertisers on Tuesday, the eve of the planned one-month boycott, three sources who participated in the calls told Reuters.

But the executives offered no new details on how they would tackle hate speech, the sources said. Instead, they pointed back to recent press releases, frustrating advertisers on the calls who believe those plans do not go far enough.

"It's simply not moving," one executive at a major ad agency said of the conversations.

Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg agreed to meet with the organizers of the boycott, a spokeswoman said. One of those groups, the Anti-Defamation League, said the meeting would happen on Monday or Tuesday next week.

U.S. civil rights groups including the Anti-Defamation League, NAACP and Color of Change started the "Stop Hate for Profit" campaign after the death of Floyd, a Black man who died under the knee of a white police officer last month.

The groups outlined 10 demands for Facebook, including allowing people who experience severe harassment to speak with a Facebook employee and giving refunds to brands whose ads show up next to offensive content that is later removed.

Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg asked to meet with campaign organizers last week along with Chief Product Officer Chris Cox, Zuckerberg's longtime friend, who returned to Facebook this month after resigning over the company's direction last year.

The groups insisted Zuckerberg also be at the table for any meeting, with Anti-Defamation League Chief Executive Jonathan Greenblatt noting that as CEO, chairman and the company's largest shareholder, "he is the ultimate authority."

The Facebook spokeswoman said the company has since confirmed that Zuckerberg would join the proposed meeting.