The Walt Disney Company was Facebook’s top advertiser during the first half of 2020, according to research firm Pathmatics Inc. The research firm estimates Disney spent as much as $210 million on ads for its new streaming channel, Disney+, during 2020 so far. Disney was a big ad buyer during 2019 as well, spending the second-most money on Facebook advertising, after Home Depot.
But in July, Disney dramatically cut the amount of money it spends on Facebook ads, according to reporting by The Wall Street Journal. Other Disney companies have also cut ads on Facebook and its sister platform Instagram, including ABC, Hulu and Freeform.
Disney joins over 1,100 other companies that agreed to stop advertising on Facebook during July. A coalition of civil rights groups—the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), the NAACP, Sleeping Giants, Color of Change, Free Press and Common Sense—is behind the boycott, dubbed “Stop Hate for Profit.” The boycott is in response to Facebook’s “repeated failure to meaningfully address the vast proliferation of hate on its platforms,” according to a statement released by the groups in June.
“[Facebook] allowed incitement to violence against protesters fighting for racial justice in America in the wake of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Tony McDade, Ahmaud Arbery, Rayshard Brooks and so many others,” the statement continued. “They turned a blind eye to blatant voter suppression on their platform. Could they protect and support Black users? Could they call out Holocaust denial as hate?… They absolutely could. But they are actively choosing not to do so,”
Many brands big and small, including Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream, Coca-Cola, Firefox and Reebok, have pledged to stop advertising on the platform for July, and in some cases, longer. Facebook’s response was initially to urge advertisers not to stop spending because the company didn’t make decisions based on revenue.
“We do not make policy changes tied to revenue pressure,” business executive Carolyn Everson said in an email to advertisers in June. “We set our policies based on principles rather than business interests.”
In July, Facebook asked for a meeting with boycott leaders. However, the leaders were not impressed with Facebook’s response.
“Instead of committing to a timeline to root out hate and disinformation on Facebook, the company’s leaders delivered the same old talking points to try to placate us without meeting our demands,” Free Press Co-CEO Jessica Gonzalez said in a statement, adding that the leaders “didn’t hear anything today to convince us that Zuckerberg and his colleagues are taking action.”
Jonathan Greenblatt, the CEO of the ADL, agreed. In a tweet, he said that the meeting with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, COO Sheryl Sandberg and Chief Product Officer Christopher Cox “yielded familiar results: no changes, no timeline, no response to our specific requests. We are tired of hearing what Facebook says they will do; we want to actually see them do it. We want them to #StopHateForProfit.”
Facebook said it plans to invest over $200 million in Black-owned businesses. The company also announced strategies for fighting hate speech in ads, but boycott organizers said Facebook’s proposed actions did not go far enough.
Despite the large number of companies involved in the boycott, some experts suggest it will ultimately not hurt the company. Social media industry commentator Matt Navarra previously told Newsweek the boycott is similar to a 2017 boycott against YouTube over racist and homophobic content.
“Advertisers smell blood in the water, and are going in for the kill right now. However, Facebook will likely only suffer superficial wounds and public shaming in the longer term. Facebook is the world’s best targeted ad platform. Advertisers will miss using it long before Facebook feels any real pain,” Navarra said.
Facebook declined to comment specifically on Disney’s cut to ad spending, but told Newsweek: “We invest billions of dollars each year to keep our community safe and continuously work with outside experts to review and update our policies. We know we have more work to do, and we’ll continue to work with civil rights groups, GARM, and other experts to develop even more tools, technology and policies to continue this fight.”
Update (7/18/2020, 7:00 p.m. ET): This article has been updated to include a statement from Facebook.
