Facebook shares fell sharply by $56 billion after consumer product giants Unilever and Coco-Cola joined Dove, Honda and Ben & Jerry in support of the #StopHateForProfit campaign by pulling their advertisements from social media platforms. The stock slumped 8.3 percent to $216.08 per share at closing time on Nasdaq.
Unilever, one of the largest advertisers, which has an annual advertising budget of almost $8 billion according to a Bloomberg report, said that it will not advertise on Facebook, Twitter and Facebook-owned Instagram for the rest of the year because of the hate speech and polarized politics that users often post.
“Continuing to advertise on these platforms at this time would not add value to people and society,” Unilever said in an emailed statement according to a Bloomberg report. “We will be monitoring ongoing and will revisit our current position if necessary.”
The fall in market cap of Facebook also wipes off $7.2 billion of founder Mark Zuckerberg’s net worth, pushing him down to the fourth richest person in the world on Bloomberg Billionaires’ Index with his new net worth of $82.3 billion.
Coca-Cola announced that it will pause all paid social media advertising globally for at least 30 days saying ‘there is no place for racism in the world and there is no place for racism on social media.’
Under pressure after a boycott by 100 advertisers, Zuckerberg announced new content policies for his social media platforms, including tighter restrictions on advertising and labels for ‘harmful’ and ‘hateful’ posts from public figures. He said that the company will be labelling all voting-related posts with a link encouraging users to look at its new voter information hub.

