Unilever has joined the growing list of major companies boycotting the social media site. The companies are called on Facebook and other social media platforms, like Twitter, to be more proactive in removing content deemed harmful.
Unilever has said that they will stop advertising on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, at least through 2020. In a statement they said: “Continuing to advertise on these platforms at this time would not add value to people and society,” the maker of Dove soap and Ben & Jerry’s ice cream, said.” We will revisit our current position if necessary.”
In response Facebook have announced they will add labels to posts that could be deemed harmful, but is also regarded newsworthy. They cited examples of a news piece that may directly quote a politician saying something that could be harmful, but taken in the context of a news article is regarded as news.
“A handful of times a year, we leave up content that would otherwise violate our policies if the public interest value outweighs the risk of harm,” Mark Zuckerberg said. “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.
“We will soon start labelling some of the content we leave up because it is deemed newsworthy, so people can know when this is the case,” he said.
Read More: BBC
