As the boycott against Facebook gained traction among marketers including Honda, Unilever, Diageo and Verizon, Facebook on Friday finally blinked, if only slightly.
CEO Mark Zuckerberg outlined plans to tackle disinformation and label harmful content, the kind that has gone unchecked in the past—including posts from President Donald Trump. But almost immediately, the NAACP said Zuckerberg did not go far enough, and that its pressure campaign would not end.
“Facebook is supporting hate, not ‘free speech’” Derrick Johnson, NAACP president, said in the statement. “I am incredibly concerned with Zuckerberg’s response ... Facebook’s inactions are costing us lives.”
The NAACP’s response means the brand boycott will endure, if not grow, putting Facebook’s competitors in a position to capture dollars from brands exploring their options. And the decisions by Unilever and Coca-Cola Co. to extend their freezes beyond Facebook into other social media companies adds a new dynamic to the movement, which had previously focused only on Facebook and its Instagram site. Unilever added Twitter to its freeze list, while Coca-Cola said it would pause spending on all social media platforms, including YouTube, Snapchat and Twitter, globally for at least 30 days. It didn’t say where it might divert money, but an option is to pocket it, and focus on its own sites.
Other boycotting brands are exploring options including Pinterest, Google and TikTok. A spokeswoman from Eddie Bauer, which said that it was pausing advertising on Facebook, says “we will be using those dollars to expand our testing initiatives across the broader social landscape including possible tests with Pinterest, YouTube, Snapchat, TikTok and more.” Eileen Fisher, the sustainably-minded womenswear brand, has stopped advertising with Facebook and will be using that money for “a variety of channels such as email, organic social as well as performance media,” according to a spokeswoman.