translated from Spanish: “Stop Hate for Profit” the mega-publicity boycott that complicates Facebook and Instagram

Giants of the world from all business areas have joined the “Stop Hate for Profit” campaign, which seeks to put a stop to the spread of hate speech and false information on Facebook and its associated networks, such as Instagram. This is in the context of the strong and deep protests against racial discrimination that have slashed America and the world in recent weeks. As stated on its website (www.stophateforprofit.org) on 17 June, this campaign was to ask companies to temporarily stop their financing of the network through the payment of advertising unless they took concrete action against the spread of hatred and disinformation. And little by little this movement began to gain strength, last Friday being a turning point, when international giant Unilever decided to suspend its advertising investment on Facebook not only for the month of July, but for the remainder of 2020. These actions, among others, such as the sum of -increasingly – new companies to boycott, have caused Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook, to step back in his initial position, noting that, if they will make some changes, including that from the social network they will “start to put a label on posts that appear newscasting but violate their policies”, as stated by the Business Insider.De all forms, this measure is far from what is required by the “Stop Hate for Porfit” campaign that demands 10 actions to be taken by the social information company, and which are as follows:1.- Establish and empower a permanent civil rights infrastructure, including a high-level executive with experience in this area , to evaluate new products and policies in the face of possible discrimination, prejudice and/or hatred. This person should ensure that the platform’s design and decisions consider its impact on all communities, as well as see its potential for radicalization and hatred.2.- Deliver to a third party independent audits related to hate and disinformation issues, with the results of summaries visible on a publicly accessible website. We just can’t keep relying on what Facebook points out they’re doing or not doing. A “transparency report” is only acceptable to the extent that its author is independent.3.- Deliver an audit and possibility of reimbursement to all those who have appeared next to content that has subsequently been removed for violation of terms of service. We have several documented cases of company warning that appeared alongside the horrible content that Facebook allows. That’s not what most warnings pay for, and they shouldn’t do it.4.- Find and remove public and private groups focused on white supremacism, militias, anti-Semitism, violent conspiracies, Holocaust denialism, vaccine disinformation and climate change denierism.5.- Adopt common sense changes to its policies, which will help reject radicalization and hatred on the platform.6.- Stop recommending or otherwise amplify groups or content associated with hatred, disinformation or conspiracies to users.7.- Create an internal mechanism that automatically alerts hate content in private groups to be reviewed by humans. Private groups are not small groups of friends or gathering groups, but can have hundreds of thousands of people, like many hate groups.8.- Ensuring accuracy in political and voting matters, eliminating the exemption to politicians, removing voting-related misinformation and banning calls to violence by politicians in any format. Given the importance of political and voting issues for society, Facebook making an exception in this area is especially dangerous.9.- Creating teams of experts to review allegations of identity hatred and harassment. 42% of daily Facebook users have experienced harassment on the platform, and much of it is based on the individual’s identity aspects. Facebook needs to ensure that its teams understand the different types of harassment faced by different groups in order to judge their claims.10.- Allow individuals facing severe harassment and hatred to connect with a Facebook employee live. In no other sector does a company lack a way for the victims of its product to seek help.

Original source in Spanish