Yahoo Finance Disney cuts Facebook ad spending following boycott
Disney has reportedly scaled back its advertising on Facebook and Instagram following an advertising boycott of the social network over its response to hate speech and misinformation.
The media company had been the social network's top US advertiser in the first half of 2020, spending $210m (£167m), but has since cut its Facebook ad spending, The Wall Street Journal reported.
Disney has not yet made any public comment about its decision to scale back its Facebook advertising, however the company has reportedly suspended Facebook adverts promoting its new video streaming service Disney Plus.
It joins companies including Microsoft, Ford and Adidas which have paused or reduced their advertising spend during July.
More than 400 companies have frozen spending over concerns surrounding Facebook’s policies about hate speech on its sites.
In response, the company has pledged to crack down on offensive online content.
Sir Nick Clegg, the former deputy prime minister who is now Facebook’s vice president of global affairs and communications, wrote earlier this month that “Facebook does not profit from hate.”
“Billions of people use Facebook and Instagram because they have good experiences — they don’t want to see hateful content, our advertisers don’t want to see it, and we don’t want to see it. There is no incentive for us to do anything but remove it,” he wrote.
A May survey of large Facebook advertisers carried out by the World Federation of Advertisers found that 52pc of respondents planned to suspend online advertising spending for six months or longer.
Many large brands including Unilever and Coca-Cola have also paused sponsored posts on social network Twitter.
A Facebook spokesman said: "We invest billions of dollars each year to keep our community safe and continuously work with outside experts to review and update our policies."
"We know we have more work to do, and we’ll continue to work with civil rights groups, the Global Alliance for Responsible Media, and other experts to develop even more tools, technology and policies to continue this fight."
