On Tuesday morning, Facebook's COO Sheryl Sandberg announced that the company's top leadership, including Mark Zuckerberg, would meet with prominent civil rights leaders as well as members of the Stop Hate For Profit campaign in order to brainstorm methods for hate speech policy on the platform. The decision arrives shortly after multiple companies have pulled from advertising on Facebook, including PlayStation, Lego, Canadian banks like Scotiabank, RBC, CIBC, BMO, and National Bank, Target, Microsoft, Unilever, Verizon, Pfizer, Patagonia, North Face, Levi's, Puma, Madewell, Hershey, and many more. It's a financial wound and a gaping one at that.
"We meet in the context of what may be the largest social movement in US history and our nation’s best and latest chance to act against the racism that has pervaded our country since before our independence," Sandberg says. "It’s a big moment for all of us, especially now. Much more than words, people, organizations and companies need to take action — and we at Facebook know what a big responsibility we have."
On the surface, it's a commendable move as it prioritizes public safety over the newsworthiness of stunningly dangerous rhetoric — which is something Zuckerberg continues to overlook — but at the end of the day, in all seriousness, Facebook is desperately trying to save itself from a boycott that is set to cost it billions and billions of dollars. As usual, it's only the fear of financial repercussions that have spurred it to action.
Contradicting Zuckerberg —
It was only last week that Zuckerberg spoke in a town hall meeting about his lack of concern for the longterm effects of the boycott. "My guess is that all these advertisers will be back on the platform soon enough," he said, adding that the company is "not going to change our policies or approach on anything because of a threat to a small percent of our revenue." That's typical of Zuckerberg's hubris but doesn't align with Sandberg's comments today.
You can't have it both ways —
Publicly, Facebook is using language and sound bites that are crafted to calm legitimately worried people. Internally, however, Facebook's leadership seems more inclined toward maintaining and even hardening its speech policy that has, time and again, enabled division, polarization, and bigotry. From pro-civil war Boogaloo adherents to Donald Trump himself openly supporting physical violence against protesters, Zuckerberg's platform seems almost perfectly designed to promote unhinged content without concern for its potential, real-world effects.
Civil rights audit, too —
The company is expected to release a civil rights audit on Wednesday, too. The review spans over two years of Facebook's management of speech policies and practices. It's hard to imagine there'll be any progress after this meeting, but one thing is crystal-clear: Facebook is hurting and it's trying everything in its power to get advertisers back on board.
