Starbucks to Pull Ads From All Social Media Platforms

Starbucks announced Sunday in an online statement it will pause advertisements on all social media platforms over ineffective policing of hate speech.

According to MarketWatch, the announcement comes two days after the coffee giant said it will pause U.S. advertising on both Facebook and Twitter through the end of the year due to ineffective policing of hate speech. The announcement led to a sharp Friday selloff in both stocks.

“We believe in bringing communities together, both in person and online, and we stand against hate speech,” Starbucks said in a statement. “We believe both business leaders and policy makers need to come together to affect real change. We will pause advertising on all social media platforms while we continue discussions internally, with our media partners and with civil rights organizations in the effort to stop the spread of hate speech.”

A Starbucks spokesperson said the decision is not part of the official #StopHateForProfit boycott organized by civil rights groups. Starbucks joins a growing list of companies pulling advertisements from social media platforms in order to force them to change.

Starbucks said it will continue to advertise digitally, but will not post ads on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or Pinterest. Last year Starbucks spent more than $200 million on advertising on those platforms.

Starbucks joins Ben and Jerry’s ice cream, Verizon Communications, Coca-Cola, and Pepsi beverages in joining the advertising boycott. Facebook shares dropped 8.3% on Friday, eliminating $56 billion from the company’s market value after British-Dutch consumer goods company Unilever joined the advertising boycott.

The boycott has cost Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg more than $7 billion in personal wealth and the social media giant has announced it will begin flagging political content that violates its policies.

“Often, seeing speech from politicians is in the public interest, and in the same way that news outlets will report what a politician says, we think people should generally be able to see it for themselves on our platforms,” Zuckerberg wrote in a blog post on Friday. “We will soon start labeling some of the content we leave up because it is deemed newsworthy, so people can know when this is the case.”

Facebook also announced it will begin banning a “wider category of hateful content in ads.” It will also “create a voting information center to share authoritative information on how and when you can vote.”

In early June, Facebook announced it will donate $10 million to social justice causes, but many have been calling for the social media giant to go further.