Patagonia & The North Face Boycott Facebook Ads In Support Of #StopHateForProfits Campaign
Patagonia and The North Face are the biggest brands from the action sports world to join the Stop Hate For Profits campaign, which asks all businesses to stand in solidarity with “our most deeply held American values of freedom, equality and justice and not advertise on Facebook’s services in July.” The initiative was started by a number of civil rights groups including the NAACP and the Anti-Defamation League to act as a campaign to encourage companies who spend large amounts of advertising money with Facebook to use their leverage over the tech giant (which also owns Instagram and Whatsapp) to pressure them into changing their ways.
Facebook is facing increased pressure to combat hate speech after Twitter, one its largest competitors, recently began flagging false and inflammatory statements from Donald Trump.
Brands such as Mozilla, REI and and online job seeking platform Upwork have also joined the movement. With the turmoil caused by COVID-19 it will be interesting to see how many smaller businesses, who rely on Facebook ads to facilitate a large portion of their online sales, will get on board with the initiative.
