PlayStation is pulling advertisements from Facebook and Instagram as part of the Stop Hate for Profit movement. The campaign seeks to send a message to Facebook that profiting from people and organizations promoting hate won’t be tolerated.
The Stop Hate for Profit campaign kicked off in late July, headed by a group of activist organizations including Colour of Change and the NAACP. According to the organizers, Facebook is allowing hate groups to spread messages using the social media platform, when it could easily keep them out. Other social media sites have taken more decisive action to keep hate speech off their platforms, including Twitter, which has been called out for its own lax attitude toward hate speech and abuse in the past. Major advertisers including Verizon, Ben & Jerry’s, and Coca-Cola have already joined the boycott.
PlayStation recently joined the campaign, announcing a stop to all of its advertisements on Facebook and Instagram (which is owned by Facebook) until the end of July, according to Gamesindustry.biz. In a statement, PlayStation said, “We stand for working (and playing) together for good.”
PlayStation wasn’t the first big name in gaming to pull its ads from Facebook. Earlier this week, it was reported that Microsoft had stopped all advertising spending on the platform back in May. Unlike PlayStation, though, the move from Microsoft isn’t related to the Stop Hate for Profit campaign. Instead, Microsoft’s complaint was that Facebook showed its ads alongside inappropriate content, though it didn’t explicitly say what content it deems to be inappropriate. Though Microsoft’s move isn’t part of the Stop Hate for Profit movement, it seems that the company has similar issues with the platform. However, Microsoft isn’t severing all of its ties with the social media giant, as right around the same time that its advertising pause went public, the company also announced that it was closing its streaming site Mixer to form a new partnership with Facebook Gaming.
It’s not clear what steps Facebook will be willing to take to win back its advertisers, but the massive list of participating businesses on the Stop Hate for Profit website shows that dozens of high-profile companies have pulled out, leaving what must be a large hole in its revenue. The behavior that Facebook is accused of - giving voice to white nationalists and failing to protect users who protested to support Black Lives Matter, for example - is serious enough for companies like PlayStation to lose valuable advertising space over, and it’s clear that action will be needed for the platform to save face.
Source: Gamesindustry.biz