We previously covered how Facebook is under fire for hate speech and how companies have started a campaign against it. #StopHateForProfit
movement has been going strong since then as more companies have joined the
movement pulling their ads from Facebook to hold it accountable for being a
safe haven for hate speeches and online harassment.
With companies such as Target, Microsoft, and Starbucks have
cancelled their ads on Facebook to stop it from generating revenue, data
analytics show that Facebook is not even feeling the loss. The cancellation and
pulling away ads from Facebook have not had a big impact on Facebook
advertisement revenue. The only effect these boycotts have had is that Facebook
is more in the headlines these days, and the online harassment on the platform
has come into the light.
Wall Street Journal suggested that the top boycotting
companies made up for $57 million for Facebook ad revenue which, in retrospect,
looks like a significant amount, but compare that to the $34 billion ad revenue
that Facebook accumulated from advertisements in just the USA and Canada in
2019 ($70 billion globally in 2019). You will see that the number is not nearly
enough to hurt the social media giant. Microsoft spent the most amount of money
on Facebook ads in May ($10 million) while Starbucks closely followed behind it
($8 million). These companies were just over 10 percent of what Facebook made
on ad revenue through other company’s ads that month.
The data also showed that the top companies only made up for
24 percent of Facebook’s ad revenue, while 76 percent came from other small to
medium-sized companies on the platform.
Infographic by: statista.com