Stop Hate: CNN Publishes Shame List of Companies that Didn’t Join Facebook Boycott

By Staff, Agencies 

CNN has named and shamed a list of brands that haven’t joined a movement to boycott Facebook for all manner of social justice offenses, drawing criticism online for its “bizarre” activism campaign.

‘Companies do nothing’ is not a news story, yet that’s exactly what CNN reported on Wednesday. After a slew of major brands – including Unilever, Adidas, Ford, Volkswagen, Microsoft, and Levi Strauss – temporarily pulled their advertising from Facebook, CNN called out a list of firms that have yet to fall in line with their counterparts, implicitly calling on them to do so.

According to the report, only three of the largest spenders on Facebook ads last year have joined the protest. The list of those who haven’t includes Walmart, Home Depot, Uber, Netflix and American Express, and CNN shook down their spokespeople for comment. Some ignored the call; others, like Home Depot, said they were watching the boycott movement “closely.”

In calling these firms out, CNN is doing the work of the Stop Hate For Profit campaign. Organized by the Anti-Defamation League, NAACP, Southern Poverty Law Center and others, the campaign wants businesses to “hit pause on hate” and pull their advertising from Facebook for the month of July.

Facebook’s alleged offenses are laid out on the campaign’s website, and include charges as innocuous as its listing of right-wing news site Breitbart as a “trusted news source,” right up to accusations of “blatant voter suppression” and “promoting hate, bigotry, racism, antisemitism and violence.”

In response, the campaign wants Facebook to submit to “identity-based hate” audits, root out and remove everything from “Holocaust denialism” to “climate denialism,” use AI to spot hateful discussion in private groups, and remove “misinformation relating to voting.” 

CNN itself didn’t spend a single dollar on Facebook advertisements in the last week of June. However, the news outlet has spent nearly $400,000 on Facebook ads since May 2018. Presumably, the network will now cease its own ad campaign entirely. CNN’s parent company, WarnerMedia, has also not joined the boycott, and made no public comment on any future plans to do so.