Disney Stops Spending On Advertisements On Facebook, Instagram

Disney, one of the top Facebook ad spenders, as per recent media reports on Sunday, has come down with its expenditure on social network and Instagram with concerns surrounding the company’s non-response towards the spread of hateful content over its platform.

Wall Street reported that Disney has significantly reduced its ads for its news Disney Plus which streams across Facebook, in addition to it had also put a full stop to its Hulu streaming service which used to run on Facebook’s Instagram platform.

Funds for Disney Plus ads amounted to $210 million which were invested by Disney on Facebook for the first 6 months of 2020. Similarly, it spent around  $16 million for Hulu ads which were meant to run on Instagram, between April 15 to June 30. Facebook in response to the situation said that it has “more work to do” on curbing hate speech.

Facebook can get a huge financial hit if Disney makes up its mind to stick to its #StopHateforProfit campaign. Civil rights groups leaders did not get a satisfactory answer from CEO Mark Zuckerberg and COO Sheryl Sandberg when they approached them over their concern towards the hate speech and content in the platform.

Top executives of Facebook Sandberg, Zuckerberg met Color of Change an online racial justice group, the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, among the others who initiated the campaign #StopHateforProfit in June that has recorded an exit of 400 advertisers from Facebook. 

Among the brands that less preferred, Facebook as a platform for their advertisement is top brands like Coca Cola, Adidas, Walgreens and Starbucks. Microsoft too is following the same trend and has brought down its advertisements on Facebook and Instagram till August.

Sandberg sensing tough times ahead has urged to bring down all hateful posts that are circulating in the platform, saying the social network has to get better at finding and removing hateful content.

“Facebook stands firmly against hate. Being a platform where everyone can make their voice heard is core to our mission, but that doesn’t mean it’s acceptable for people to spread hate. It’s not,” she said in an earlier statement.

Adding to Facebook’s list of brands who took an exit from the platform, New Zealand-based news site Stuff has also made up its mind to quit Facebook and its sister platforms in the middle of criticism over its non-competence in the handling of hate speech and misinformation.

Zuckerberg however seems to be optimistic and has shown confidence that soon the brands would choose Facebook over others as their ad platform.