The "Stop Hate For Profit" campaign group has dented the market value of Facebook and Twitter. The group asked advertisers to suspend advertising with the social media giants until they reformed their practices. The group wants stricter moderation of posts deemed to contain hate speech and misinformation. The value of Facebook plummeted by eight per cent last Friday as Unilever halted its advertising. A three per cent drop followed on Monday as other major brands paused their spending on the social media platform. Facebook's value has fallen by around $60 billion.
The Stop Hate For Profit campaign started on June the 17th. Civil rights groups and non-profit watchdogs collaborated on a campaign to get social media platforms to address biases in the content uploaded to their sites. It called for an advertising boycott and asked advertisers to, "hit pause on hate". It asked businesses, "to stand in solidarity with our most deeply held...values of freedom, equality and justice and not advertise on [these] services in July." Facebook responded by announcing new policies, including a ban on hateful content and on posts making false claims about voting.