Facebook Inc is an American social network and technology company founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg, Chris Hughes, Eduardo Saverin, Dustin Moskovitz, and Andrew McCollum. While the platform originally started as a social platform that allowed students to create profiles and connect with fellow students but quickly grew into a $70 billion company in less than 15 years.
In the past 13 years, Facebook has grown into a robust advertising platform, spearheading initiatives to provide internet access in developing countries, and has even communicated plans to venture into artificial intelligence and virtual reality.
Inside Facebook New York Office
Recently, advertisers have begun boycotting the company and pulling out of its advertising network, costing Mark Zuckerberg over $7.2 billion in lost revenue. This is mostly due to its handling of misinformation and hate speech, including its laissez-faire attitude towards posts from President Trump.
Shares of the social media company fell 8.3% on Friday, after Unilever, joined Hershey Co., Honda America, Levi Strauss & Co., Birchbox and others in boycotting ads on the social network.
The likes of Verizon Communications Inc and Coca-Cola Co have also pulled out of paid advertising on all social media platforms criticizing Facebook for not sufficiently policing hate speech and disinformation on its platform,
With the drop on share-price, over $30 billion has been eliminated from Facebook’s market value leaving its net worth reduced to $82.3 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, this led the Facebook chief executive officer taking down a peg to fourth place and being outstripped by Louis Vuitton boss Bernard Arnault, who was elevated to one of the world’s three richest people along with Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates.
Mark Zuckerberg responded on Friday to the increasing criticism about misinformation on the site, assuring them that it would label all voting-related posts with a link encouraging users to look at its new voter information hub.
He went further to expand the definition of prohibited hate speech, adding a clause saying no adverts will be allowed if they label another demographic as dangerous.
In Zuckerberg words “There are no exceptions for politicians in any of the policies to be implemented.”.
The boycott began with a number of small businesses, which make up the bulk of Facebook’s eight million advertisers. But recently, several large companies spending millions of dollars annually on the platform joined in the boycott distancing themselves from the Tech giant.
Facebook spends billions of dollars a year to keep its platforms safe and works with outside experts to review and update its policies, the company said in a statement on Friday. But it added that “we know we have more work to do.”
