Question 1

Can your asks be realistically accomplished by Facebook?

In addition, our ten asks of Facebook are simple and most could be completed in a short period of time, including:

Shut down large groups (many with over 100,000 members) that are full of hate and violent conspiracies

Prohibit blatant lies in political ads

Enable victims of severe harassment to contact a live Facebook employee for help

So far Facebook has responded to this incredible groundswell with a lot of messaging along with some minor changes. But we are only at the starting line, and it is clear that Facebook’s users, advertisers, stakeholders and even many of their own employees demand more.

Answer

Our partner organizations have been working with Facebook for years and will continue to work with them. The Stop Hate for Profit coalition launched this campaign as a last resort because each of the founding organizations had been communicating with Facebook for years. Like businesses that have expressed similar concerns, they came away with vague timelines, shrugged shoulders or empty promises. We are always willing to engage in good faith meetings with Mark Zuckerberg. In fact, several coalition leaders met with Zuckerberg on July 7 in response to the campaign’s success right out of the gate. That meeting reinforced what we’ve known all along – that Facebook wants us to accept the same old rhetoric, repackaged as a fresh response in an attempt to run out the clock on us.

Answer

No platform has made significant structural changes. As ADL’s Online Hate and Harassment survey showed, the problem hasn’t lessened—41% of Americans experience harassment online even though companies have made more policy changes than they had previously. But a policy change is only as good as its enforcement. We need enforcement at scale. To achieve that, bold, structural changes, not incremental steps, are necessary so platforms can meet the level of hate, racism, and misinformation we have seen over the past year. Of the five social media platforms we evaluated over the last year, Facebook made the least progress toward meeting the Stop Hate for Profit coalition’s demands. It is the world’s largest social media platform by far and has an outsize influence on how the world communicates. The onus is on Facebook, even more so than other platforms, to address hate and harassment meaningfully because of its dominance within the industry. What Facebook does and does not do has reverberating effects. Read our full evaluation of Stop Hate for Profit one year later here.

Question 2

Why don’t the coalition members just sit down and talk with Facebook about this?

Question 3

What is Stop Hate For Profit?

Stop Hate for Profit is a diverse and growing coalition that wants social media companies to take common-sense steps to address the rampant racism, disinformation and hate on its platform. It includes thousands of businesses, numerous prominent celebrities as well as some of the most prominent civil rights groups and nonprofit organizations in the country including ADL, Color of Change, Common Sense, Free Press, LULAC, Mozilla, NAACP, National Hispanic Media Center, and Sleeping Giants.

As of January 2021, we are asking that Facebook, Twitter, Alphabet and other social media platforms #BanTrumpSaveDemocracy by permanently removing Donald Trump from their platforms. Access to these services is a privilege, one that Donald Trump clearly has forfeited based on an indisputable pattern of behavior that preceded his calls to violence on January 6. If platforms do not remove Donald Trump by the presidential inauguration on January 20, when there must be a peaceful transition, the Stop Hate for Profit Coalition will call on companies to stop advertising on those platforms.

Our initial focus was on Facebook. Facebook’s policies and enforcement on hate speech, incitement to violence, and misinformation are astonishingly weak, and disproportionately harm BIPOC and LGBTQ+ users. Large groups dedicated to hate and violent conspiracies grow unchecked, and Facebook often recommends users join these groups. Political ads contain bald-faced lies, and even outright voter suppression. Misinformation and conspiracies are considered matters of debate. Victims of online harassment are left with virtually no support. Businesses’ ads are run alongside hateful content. Facebook still has significant work to do in this regard and must do so as soon as possible.

Question 4

One year later, how have Facebook and other platforms responded?

Question 5

I’m an individual and want to support Stop Hate For Profit. What can I do?

Use your voice to demand social media companies adopt our recommendations to stop online hate and send the message that profits will never be worth supporting hate of any kind.You can also post about the campaign on social media using #StopHateForProfit or share posts and images from the Stop Hate For Profit toolkit.

Question 6

I’m a non-profit or a business. What can I do?

We encourage businesses and non-profits to raise their voices through their various communications channels and join the chorus of individuals who are calling for social media companies to stop hate for profit. We also encourage non-profits and businesses to activate their networks of supporters and customers to raise their voices as well.

Suggested messaging can be found in the Stop Hate For Profit toolkit.

Question 7

Hasn’t Facebook already done a lot? And, didn’t they just announce policy updates? Aren’t you asking for something impossible?

Facebook is the largest communication platform in human history, with almost 2 billion users. Facebook’s annual revenue is greater than GDP of Iceland and Greenland combined, at over $70 billion. They have made announcements of product and policy changes recently, some of which may be incrementally valuable, but none at the scale which is possible and necessary given both their abundance of resources and the harms that they are inflicting on society.