Stop Hate for Profit is an ongoing campaign to hold social media companies accountable for hate on their platforms. Social media must prioritize people over profit, and they must do it now.
With the support of more than 1,200 businesses and non-profits and countless consumers, we sent a clear message to Facebook in July 2020 with our ad pause: stop valuing profits over hate, bigotry, racism, antisemitism, and disinformation.
We continue to demand change and that Facebook stop hate for profit.
#StopHateForProfit
Partners:
Stop Hate For Profit Statement: Calling on Advertisers to Pause Their Spend on Twitter
New York, NY, November 4, 2022 -- We met with Elon Musk earlier this week to express our profound concerns about some of his plans and the spike in toxic content after his acquisition. Since that time, hate and disinformation have proliferated, and he has taken actions that make us fear that the worst is yet to come. At this point in time, we are calling on advertisers to pause their spend globally until it becomes clear whether Twitter remains committed to being a safe place for advertisers as well as society overall.
Stop Hate For Profit Statement On Meeting With Elon Musk
New York, NY, November 2, 2022 -- The Stop Hate for Profit Coalition has been alarmed about the recent and potential changes being discussed for Twitter. We have already seen an uptick in extremist activity, racism, antisemitism, homophobia, disinformation and more. Advertisers share our concerns, and we have been in conversation with them about whether Twitter remains a safe place for advertising.
We discussed our profound concerns with Elon Musk yesterday, and had a productive conversation. We appreciate that he committed to not re-platforming anyone until there is a clear and transparent process; maintaining the infrastructure, enforcement and policies for election disinformation until at least after mid-term elections have been finalized; and including representatives of groups who face hate-filled violence in designing and participating in content moderation policies and processes, including a proposed council.
However, this is just the tip of the iceberg. Much more needs to be done to reduce lies and hate on Twitter, and backtracking on the last year of progress on the platform is not an option for users, advertisers or society overall.
Actions speak louder than words, and we will be monitoring Twitter’s policies and enforcement in the coming days.
Stop Hate for Profit Coalition Applauds Biden White House Summit to Reduce the Spread of Hate-Fueled Violence In America — Online And Offline
Washington, D.C, August 19, 2022 — The nation's leading coalition of civic advocacy organizations committed to protecting civil and human rights and the well-being of families online, Stop Hate for Profit (#SHFP) applauds the Biden White House for announcing a summit on what can be done to reduce hate fueled violence in America in the wake of mass shootings rooted in racism, antisemitism, hatred, and America's very real youth mental health crisis.
Stop Hate for Profit Coalition Calls on Tech Platforms to Deplatform Tucker Carlson and Other Repeat Promoters of Racist Great Replacement Theory
New York, NY, May 26, 2022 – In the wake of the horrific racist massacre in Buffalo, NY, Stop Hate for Profit -- the national coalition of civil rights organizations and advocacy groups behind the largest advertiser walk-out ever of Facebook – is calling on mainstream social media platforms Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Twitch, Discord, and Reddit to immediately stop the spread of hateful white supremacist rhetoric that has incited acts of violence by permanently banning repeat perpetrators like Tucker Carlson, Laura Ingraham and others from their platforms and enforcing their own hate speech policies with regard to the Great Replacement theory and white supremacy.
Read Full Statement Here
Stop Hate for Profit Demands Social Media Companies Remove Russian State Media, Amplifiers
New York, NY, March 14, 2022 – Stop Hate for Profit issued the following statement in response to Russian propaganda on social media amidst the crisis in Ukraine:
Aligned with our organizations’ opposition to oppression in all forms, Stop Hate for Profit demands that social media companies immediately remove Russian state media and their amplifiers, whether human or bots, from their services until the United States government has confirmed the end of acts of aggression and oppression directed toward the state and people of Ukraine. Such intemperate voices actively peddle hate and lies and do so in clear violation of the terms of service of each of these platforms. The companies should take this step on their own – however, if they are unwilling to do so, the Administration and Congress must act and demand it of them, whether via executive order or congressional legislation. Lives are being lost. The time is now.
ADL, NAACP, Common Sense, NHMC, Sleeping Giants
One year ago, the Stop Hate for Profit (SHFP) coalition called for Facebook to address the prevalence of hate, racism, and misinformation on their platforms. Led by prominent civil rights groups and nonprofit organizations including ADL, Color Of Change, Common Sense, Free Press, LULAC, Mozilla, NAACP, National Hispanic Media Coalition, and Sleeping Giants, Stop Hate for Profit garnered the support of thousands of businesses that paused spending on Facebook and Instagram advertisements in July 2020.
Over the past 12 months, it has become clear that the concerns raised by Stop Hate for Profit have only increased in urgency. We’ve seen a surge of extremist conspiracy theories, hate, and violence. The coronavirus pandemic was twisted to justify anti-Asian and antisemitic attacks, the country was roiled by unprecedented political polarization and a divisive election, and thousands attacked the U.S. Capitol in an attempt to violently overturn a valid presidential election—an event that was planned online in plain view. But we still lack adequate regulation, bipartisan political action, and, seemingly, the marketplace power to hold social media companies accountable for their role in amplifying hate and racism.
Did Stop Hate for Profit work? The Coalition has evaluated the progress Facebook and a number of other large social media companies have made over the past year in addressing hate and racism on their platforms and found Facebook made the least progress toward meeting the Stop Hate for Profit coalition’s demands.
Read the full analysis here.
-June 16, 2021
#StopHateForProfit September 2020 Week of Action
During our September Week of Action, the estimated reach of #StopHateForProfit was 1 billion. We thank all of the public figures who helped raise awareness on social and participated in our Instagram “Freeze.” Countless individuals also participated in the #StopHateForProfit campaign by posting on social media, participating in our Instagram “Freeze,” and demanding change. Facebook must stop the spread of racism, hate, violence and misinformation about voting across their platforms.
We are quickly approaching one of the most consequential elections in American history. Facebook’s unchecked and vague “changes” are falling dangerously short of what is necessary to protect our democracy.
Facebook’s role in the Kenosha shooting—which was flagged as violating their policies hundreds of times—is a reminder that changing policies without changing enforcement means little. It reinforces the fact that lives are on the line.
Facebook’s failures lead to real-life violence and sow division, and we’re calling on the company to improve its policies. We need to urge people to vote and demand Facebook stop undermining our democracy. Enough is enough.
-September 18, 2020
Statement from Stop Hate For Profit on July 2020 Ad Pause Success and #StopHateForProfit Campaign
At the start of the Stop Hate For Profit campaign, we asked companies to help us send a message that Facebook must stop valuing profits over hate, bigotry, racism, antisemitism, and disinformation.
The success of this campaign is unmistakable. We forced an unprecedented public examination of Facebook’s deep harms to marginalized communities and the health of our democracy. This didn’t happen overnight. It was built on years of campaigning by civil rights organizations, media responsibility groups and Black leadership. Before these efforts, Facebook fiercely opposed civil rights protections and totally expunging hate unless there were public relations crises to handle.
But our forces combined with the support of more than 1100 companies including major corporations and small businesses; more than 100+ nonprofits including racial justice, human rights and labor groups, religious organizations; and countless individuals — we sent a clear message to Facebook’s leadership: this does not stand with our common values and society is no longer willing to tolerate your inaction and profiting from hate and misinformation.
Since the start of our campaign, some of the most iconic brands in the world have pulled millions in ad dollars from the platform. Stop Hate for Profit already forced Facebook to make a series of concessions to long-standing demands of civil rights organizations. They announced the creation of a senior role to oversee civil rights. They established a dedicated team to study algorithmic racial bias. They publicly released their long-delayed civil rights audit that demonstrated their “vexing” policy decisions were “setbacks for civil rights.” Their new commitment to an independent audit may end up satisfying one of our demands if it is independent, transparent, and public. And they have finally begun taking long overdue action against some hateful movements like Boogaloo. If not for Stop Hate for Profit and this extraordinary coalition of businesses, nonprofits and consumers, none of this would have happened. But this is not close to what needs to happen.
Other social media companies have heard our message and started to step up. For example, Twitter took strong action against dangerous conspiracy theories that have led to real-life violence. Reddit took action by updating its content policies to better address hate and removed over 2000 hate-filled subreddits. YouTube took overdue action against white supremacists who use their platform. While these steps are not sufficient, they show a commitment toward real progress. More importantly, these companies are sitting at the table with us and actively working to take additional steps to protect the civil rights of their users, tackle hate and harassment on their platforms, and safeguard our democracy.
Stop Hate for Profit sent a clear message that Mark Zuckerberg has been forced to hear by the collective actions of many, not just our coalition. He cannot turn away from the demands of his employees, the demands of his advertisers, the demands of his users, and the demands of society. Zuckerberg didn’t expect advertisers to revolt, they did. He didn’t expect employees to speak up, they did. He didn’t expect civil rights organizations to unite, we did. He didn’t expect Facebook to pay a financial price, it did.
To be clear, Mr. Zuckerberg has not yet approached the type of meaningful action that we want to see. The issue is not that Facebook just lags competitors in working systemically to address hate and bigotry on their platform. To use a favorite term of Facebook’s leadership, Facebook’s attitude towards seriously addressing how their algorithms push hate, violent conspiracy theories, and disinformation is transparently “inauthentic.” Mr. Zuckerberg treats meetings and dialogue as outcomes. He puts more effort into obfuscation, lobbying, and distribution of misleading talking points than seriously addressing the deadly consequences of his choice to profit from hate. In the words of one of their own engineers who resigned this month over leadership’s unwillingness to take action on problematic content, “Facebook is hurting people at scale.” Society cannot afford the Facebook status quo.
We called for a Facebook ad pause for the month of July as the mobilization for the Stop Hate for Profit movement. Many companies, frustrated by Facebook’s unwillingness to address their concerns, have already said they are not ready to return to Facebook’s platforms. We applaud them for that decision. We see this movement growing in Europe and in other areas. And we have explicit commitments from many advertisers to participate in future pauses and new actions if Facebook continues to ignore their demands for change.
This movement will not go away until Facebook makes the reasonable changes that society wants. The ad pause in July was not a full campaign – it was a warning shot across Facebook’s bow. This movement only will get bigger and broader until Facebook takes the common-sense steps necessary to mitigate the damage it causes. And it has spurred additional constituencies who also are demanding change. We saw this demonstrated in full force yesterday in Congress where legislators forced Mark Zuckerberg to testify and held him accountable for Facebook’s failures. And we expect more constituencies will emerge in the coming weeks as this movement gains even more momentum.
Now, we know that change will not happen overnight, and we remain willing to engage with Facebook when they are prepared to commit to a public timeframe and substantive action relative to our very straightforward demands.
Mark Zuckerberg, the ball is in your court.
- July 30, 2020
#StopHateForProfit
Read our recommended next steps for Facebook to address hate online