Advertisers Will Be Back To Facebook 'Soon Enough', Zuckerberg Assures Employees (bbc.com) 98
As the ads boycott grows, Mark Zuckerberg shows no sign of backing down. From a report: "My guess is that all these advertisers will be back on the platform soon enough" the Facebook chief executive has said. Campaigners accuse the tech firm of being too slow and reluctant to remove some hateful content. But Zuckerberg added: "We're not going to change our policies or approach on anything because of a threat to a small percent of our revenue." The comments were made to Facebook staff at a private meeting last Friday, and were subsequently leaked to the Information news site. The social network has confirmed they are accurate and also announced a fresh development: its chief executive is to meet the organisers of the boycott - Stop Hate for Profit. It illustrates the concurrent ways Facebook is dealing with the matter. The first is to be publicly conciliatory: offer smaller changes and hit home its message that hate has no place on the platform. The second is to privately play down the impact of the boycott: reassure advertisers and resist any fundamental changes to Facebook's business model.
Facebook is not the problem. (Score:2, Insightful)
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Yes, human beings in general.
The greatest brute force machine in this world, meant to try everything, so the right thing is tried and spread, regardless of the challenge.
A powerful machine of creating that unfortunately leaves a trail of pollution and thomas the tank engine porn on it's way.
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Well, there's a rule 34 you know.
Re:Facebook is not the problem. (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:Facebook is not the problem. (Score:5, Insightful)
You can safely assume that anyone who calls someone who disagrees with them a lazy bigot has nothing productive to provide to society.
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Wanna put the police out of business? Stop breaking the law.
Has nothing useful to add.
Virtue Signaling? (Score:2)
The same goes for advertisers. If they want to advertise on a platform that gives a megaphone to fringe people that would not have had one not too long ago.
Freedom of Speech also give me a right to punish those who enable speech I do not like. It is called CAPITALISM.
And it also gives people more of a voice than others. And more rights tha
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More money, more voice.
Yes, that is why election ballots are much more valuable than dollar bills. Nobody has the advantage.
Re:Virtue Signaling? (Score:4, Insightful)
"Nobody has the advantage."
Psst... "History" would like to have a word with you.
Someone always has an advantage... and it is usually people you will never know about... well until you cross them and find out how fast your rights dry up like a cup of water spilled in the desert.
Money & Power are the same, you have either you have both, they do not exist without each other. People do things for money, and that gives those with money power. Power gets money because that is just how it goes.
Everyone bitching right now about the Bourgeoisie are the same folks that ridicule the libertarians. Here is a little known secret... the creation of government is the establishment of the Bourgeoisie. The 1% has always ruled and they will never not rule, and no amount of words, whining, stupidity, or effort on your part is going to change that. There is only one way to rid yourself of the ruling class... "Anarchy" and you know what that does...
So you have two choices.
Realize that "might makes right" or
Whine to everyone about your ignorance until you are dead.
If you think racism is the problem then you are the problem.
If you think religion is the problem then you are the problem.
If you think any "ism" is the problem then you are the problem.
There is only 1 problem... that is greedy humans. They will use religion, secularism, science, social justice, bigotry, fear... ESPECIALLY FUCKING FEAR to get exactly what they want and most people will absolutely fall for most of it.
You can indeed fool most of the people most of the time. It's not hard to do, and its not even hard to see. Everyone that says any group or party is better than the other is a prime candidate for the fools in "The Emperors New Clothes". That story is the truth of humanity in a simple and easy to understand format. And Despite that... most people still think that the Emperors new cloths are the finest to be seen.
You better fucking believe someone has the advantage!
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They only have the advantage you give them
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Usage (Score:2)
I use Facebook all the time. I'm friends with some close friends and family, and a few groups about architecture and computers. I don't get any political posts at all. No news. Nothing. If someone posts something political I unfollow or ignore them. The groups I'm on have a strict no politics rule. Facebook works great for me. I share pictures of my kids, and see my family's kid pictures as well. Sometimes some funny dog or cat movies. It's great.
Facebook is, generally, pretty good at doing what you tell it
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Let's install a huge banner the street in front of your house where everyone can write how awful, terrible, despicable person you and your family are; that you do not deserve to live in their city and must go back to living in the forest were you belong, etc.
Now, please, let me know WHO is the one who CAN STOP this nonse FASTER?
Will you try to change the mind of thousand of criminals and imbelices OR you will ask the company that owns the banner to remove it?
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Now, please, let me know WHO is the one who CAN STOP this nonse FASTER?
On Facebook, you can, by simply blocking it. That's why your analogy stinks
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Twitter is actually the problem (Score:4, Informative)
This satire piece sums it up nicely https://babylonbee.com/news/tw... [babylonbee.com]
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Watch out! They will accuse you of victim blaming.
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If some "new shiny" comes out
... then FB will buy it with their enormous war chest, like they did w/ Instagram.
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Thiel's puppet talks? (Score:2)
"My guess is that all these advertisers will be back on the platform soon enough" the Facebook chief executive [Zuckerberg] has said
I thought that puppet would've been screaming in pain, what with a hand so for up its ass.
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A problem for Facebook might arise if the advertisers look at their revenue and if it doesn't go down for not advertising on Facebook, they'll kiss Zuck and his toy machine goodbye.
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Kind of hard to tease out that effect given record low consumer confidence. Perhaps they should try boycotting when they actually have potential consumers to advertise to.
Of course! (Score:1, Flamebait)
AMEX wants all those Boogaloo...bugaleu, boogabooga...whatever*...people to sign up for their cards and use them to buy their assault guns and crates of .223 for the racial civil war that they are hoping for. And considering the buying frenzy now, I would love
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.223 and 5.56 NATO are quite different and should not be mixed, unless your gun is built for this.
However I do agree, those people playing dress up soldier at CHAZ/CHOP prancing around with their overpriced 5.56 NATO they got from the local warlord's trunk of his Tesla, shooting and killing 3 people and wounding many others, are losers.
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I rather like their faux "tactical" outfits. Black material and big pockets are very chic with that crowd, a he-boy backdrop for one of the most important things in their lives, i.e., waving their automatic weapons around to impress their fellow gun nutz. They get extra points for not wearing a face mask down at the Imagine-You-Are-Somebody Bar and Grill.
why would they? (Score:1)
These are established brands. Coke is the most recognized brand in the world.
They don't really need facebook to remind everyone they exist.
Re:why would they? (Score:4, Interesting)
Those companies are about to find out, it will be a nice acid test for their marketing departments: Hey, we stopped advertising and sales remained constant...get Boomer from marketing up here to explain why we still have that department.
Monopoly Much? (Score:3)
We're not going to change our policies or approach on anything because of a threat to a small percent of our revenue.
This isn't a threat without merit. It isn't like he's talking about a competitor who is eating into his revenue stream. He's talking about hate speech on his platform. Let's reword it:
"We're not going to change our policies or approach on hate speech because a small percentage of our advertisers oppose it on our platform."
He's a monopoly, and he knows he can do whatever the fuck he wants and nothing will happen to him. Don't think he's a monopoly? Sure, go and talk on your own platform with nobody on it and let me know if that seems pointless. He's as much of a monopoly as the telcos were 50 years ago and we broke them up.
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That's not right. Go ADVERTISE on another platform. You can, by FB/IG has the most eyeballs for right now.
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I would think that Google/Youtube still have more eyeballs.
Re:Monopoly Much? (Score:5, Insightful)
I can't argue the Facebook isn't a monopoly, but these companies that are stopping advertising aren't exactly small fry either. My problem is how do you define hate speech? One persons opinion is another persons hate speech. For example Black lives matter - good, White lives matter - bad. If you are a white person barely making ends meet, you may very well feel that society doesn't value your life, or vice versa. Note: I do think being black means you have significant disadvantages, but it doesn't mean that I should stop listening to anybody that thinks otherwise.
If you don't agree with something argue or ignore it. I don't need daddy Zuckerberg or mommy Coke to protect me from the bad people with their bad words. Do you really think just because Facebook bands something peoples opinions will change or will it just move to a more hidden and toxic environment?
Even if you could define and ban hate speech do you seriously believe Facebook or any company is the paragon of virtue that should be defining and enforcing it? Companies will continue do what makes them money, not what is right.
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If you can't understand that raw racism in the form of white supremacist hatred that led to the rise of naziism and cross burnings, as currently practiced by the American "conservative" groups, is bad... well the problem here is not some mythical gaslighting garbage about how "one persons opinion is another persons hate speech" but rather the fact that you're a narcissistic sociopath.
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Given that "misgendering" and "fat-shaming" are bannable offenses on many websites, your argument falls flat on its face. The SJWs are unimaginably creative at inventing things that offend them and they have no qualms about labeling it as hate speech.
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Not sure it should be banned, but they could at least stop recommending it, but then, they could stop making stasi files on me, but I doubt they will.
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Re: Monopoly Much? (Score:2)
I like how when platforms ban people for saying unpopular things it's all "well the first amendment only applies to the government and these guys are a privately owned platform so they can do what they want!" ... but when a platform refuses to ban people it's all "they're an evil monopoly abusing their power!!!".
He might be the only "monopoly" to save us all! (Score:2)
That does not mean I personally disagree with
There's something else going on (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:There's something else going on (Score:5, Insightful)
Agreed.
I'm pretty sure the advertisers have looked at their metrics and basically concluded that Facebook advertising (and social media advertising in general) doesn't get them anything. And so they're taking this opportunity to stop wasting money on advertising that's not useful while at the same time doing a bit of corporate virtue signaling to their customers who care about that kind of thing.
I'm not so sure they will be back. Facebook does this thing now where it'll ask you if you remember seeing an ad from a given company. I never do. Even if I'm using their official client that doesn't permit ad blocking. Granted I basically only use Facebook to see pictures of family, but I'm very curious how effective Facebook advertising truly is. I bet major advertisers have determined that it isn't that effective at all, and that's the real reason they're all taking this opportunity to "pause" spending.
And, worse for Facebook, this may just be a test - see how sales change when advertising is "paused." If there's no change - now they know. Facebook is worthless.
Re:There's something else going on (Score:5, Interesting)
And, worse for Facebook, this may just be a test - see how sales change when advertising is "paused." If there's no change - now they know. Facebook is worthless.
I think you're right. I think they'll find out that pouring advertising money into Facebook isn't nearly as worthwhile as the Facebook ad reps claimed it was.
"We spent $5 million on ads and only got $30K back...hmmm."
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"We spent $5 million on ads and only got $30K back...hmmm."
While it is satisfying to think about execs running around with dunce caps on dumping money into toilets this isn't the reality. They know exactly how much benefit they get from advertising, and from where. Nobody dumps billions into something without knowing the benefit. If they have $5B to spend on advertising, they have a 10 million to staff a team analysts to calculate the return on the investment.
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Doubtful, they never would have spent that money to begin with if that was the case. If things weren't performing as expected they would have slowly lowered their advertising spend over a period of time.
Marketing departments pretty carefully monitor marketing campaigns to know where they money is getting a response and will quickly pull dollars from places that aren't getting the response that they want to see.
This is being driven by politics. It's the one and only thing that has more weight than the advert
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You're putting a lot of faith in marketing departments there.
If a company has someone in charge of Facebook marketing (and they probably do) that person is going to do everything in their power to make those ads look more important than they are. Misleading is their trade and protecting their high level position is going to be far more important to them than the bank account of what ever company they work for. Marketing and honesty have never been two words I associate with each other.
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Yeah... the marketing dollars just get shifted around, and there is little effort to identify what is truly effective vs what is not. I have never claimed to be normal, but just about every ad I have seen has painted more of a negative image of the company than a positive one... or just an internal joke. When shopping for car insurance I would not go to a particular brand’s website; I would look at best value and try to determine customer satisfaction with the company. I would boycott that company
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I have never claimed to be normal, but just about every ad I have seen has painted more of a negative image of the company than a positive one... or just an internal joke. When shopping for car insurance I would not go to a particular brand’s website; I would look at best value and try to determine customer satisfaction with the company. I would boycott that company with the really annoying ads though, even if they were the cheapest and most well regarded by customers.
Everyone feels that they are too smart to be affected by advertising. Companies don't spend hundreds of billions of dollars on advertising because it doesn't work. It affects us in was we don't consciously comprehend.
One (of many) interesting affects is simple familiarity. If you've seen a bunch of advertising for Coke, and not Pepsi, when presented with two options Coke will feel like the safer more comfortable choice. When Og and Grog were foraging plants, they'd pick the ones that they know were safe bec
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Doubtful, they never would have spent that money to begin with if that was the case.
You have to try something before you know it doesn't work.
Marketing departments pretty carefully monitor marketing campaigns to know where they money is getting a response and will quickly pull dollars from places that aren't getting the response that they want to see.
Or so they claim.
There's an article somewhere (sadly I can't find it) that explains that a lot of the metrics marketing departments were using to determine how successful a marketing campaign is were based on - well, basically, gut feelings and nothing else. It's very hard to know why someone bought someone. Is the 12-pack of Coca-cola in my refrigerator right now due to some Coke ad that ran on Facebook, or just because it was on sale at the local s
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You have to try something before you know it doesn't work.
Right, the over a decade FB has been around probably provided ample time for that.
For traditional print and television/radio ads, there's essentially no way to track how effective an ad was. Sure, they track sales, and try and link them to a given campaign. But generally the way they do this is by running campaigns in "test markets" and seeing how they go.
This is a great quote. You say there's no way to track, then in the next sentences you explain exactly how they track them.
Sales go up? Campaign goes national. Sales stay the same or drop? Campaign is nixed.
Yes, that's exactly how it works.
I think it's entirely possible advertisers are going to see exactly how long they can pause their campaigns. If sales don't change - there's no reason to resume.
How would they even know? There's no way for them to track effectiveness right? If there's no way for them to know that advertising works there's also no way to know when it doesn't.
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Agreed.
I'm pretty sure the advertisers have looked at their metrics and basically concluded that Facebook advertising (and social media advertising in general) doesn't get them anything. And so they're taking this opportunity to stop wasting money on advertising that's not useful while at the same time doing a bit of corporate virtue signaling to their customers who care about that kind of thing.
Agreed. And these companies are getting free advertising via the press coverage of their pause in Facebook ad buys.
I'm not so sure they will be back.
Facebook expects these ad buyers to return. If these ad buyers are riding current public opinion and press coverage, then what happens when that coverage eventually wanes and is replaced by the next important topic? These companies have ad budgets. Is there a viable Facebook alternative for ads? If not, then Zuckerberg is likely right. For most ad buyers, the driving issue is about money
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People have been trained to disregard traditional advertisements. It's not that you can't advertise on social media, you just need to do it differently. Find an internet celebrity whose every post gets 5 million views ("influencer" in the corporate jargon) and pay him to plug your product. It's way more effective when it's not marked "Advertisement" at the bottom. Marking the ad immediately gives it an air of illegitimacy. Observe how political advertising has changed over the past 5 years. You don't follow
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you just need to do it differently. Find an internet celebrity
I don't think using a celebrity to market your product is "doing it differently". That's been the plan since Bogart was hocking Chesterfield cigarettes.
Re:There's something else going on (Score:4, Interesting)
Ads are quite effective for the things you know relatively little about and in general we don't have the time or interest to research most things in our life. For these types of things I often don't even consider alternatives, it's like I have a problem and product X will solve that problem so I buy X and the problem is solved. Now maybe product Y or Z was better or cheaper, but I just reached for the first possible solution. That way I can get on with the rest of my life so I consider this rational even if it's sub-optimal.
What's the first thing that pops into your mind? It's a brand that you've seen a lot, with a memorable catchphrase or jingle. We like to tell ourselves that we don't care about the ads, but the practical reality is that we'd never bother seeking out their store on our own. If they didn't advertise they wouldn't be on the radar. At the grocery store a big poster with an introductory offer can be the difference between "meh, I'll buy the usual" and "okay, I'll give it go... doesn't cost me much to try". Notice the lack of enthusiasm, if I had that I'd buy it anyway. Ads is limping it in.
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I just think it is better publicity at the moment to stop advertising. There are still many people on Facebook, and many dumb easily influenced people. With many big advertisers, the influence there though ads just got bigger.
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edit: with many big advertisers GONE,...
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I've been boycotting Facebook for years. My home network is boycotting Facebook at the router level.
How did you do that? (Score:5, Funny)
I've been boycotting Facebook for years. My home network is boycotting Facebook at the router level.
If I did that, my wife would be boycotting me at a much lower level.
Re:There's something else going on (Score:4, Informative)
There is something else going on that has caused this rift, that is obvious. The real reason is not the stated reason here.
Advertisers want to keep their ads from showing up next to posts of Monty Python, and they have been pushing Facebook to give them this kind of power for a while. They want to be able to do "brand management." In terms of Facebook, that means Mercedes doesn't want their ad to show up next to an ad for a Toyota. They don't want their ad to show up next to "poor" things, they want it to show up next to "high class" things, and "luxurious" things. On broadcast TV, ads are segregated this way.
I want to make fun of them, but this kind of association actually works. Rolex spends money getting their watches into [rolex.com] influential sophisticated places [rolex.com]. Wearing a Rolex is for people who like TED but want the speaker in their living room, not being forced to watch it in a stadium with other people. Rolex does it well, which is why they can sell a watch for more than a car. I mock people who care so much about the opinion of others.
A minor addendum: after Coronavirus hit, companies slashed their ad budgets, so now is a convenient time to give any sort of excuse for something you were doing anyway. (ps: I used to work in the ad industry, hated it, and got out. It's immoral).
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They don't want to be "cancelled" by the twitter brigade. You better say you agree with BLM or hate Trump otherwise silence will get you labeled as racist. Which nowadays is the new McCarthy communist label. Companies are scared of the million twitter morons. Because one asshole trending on twitter is the same as a million actual complaints.
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I suspect something similar. There is a lot of rage being stimulated by politicians at getting social media to ban hate speech. And in the next breath they say, "Like Trump's latest tweet."
So twitter and facebook take a principled stand they may label political tweets, but will not ban them, and they're still the bad guys?
The proof of that will be when Trump loses, or leaves office, and the concern falls away faster than pollution concerns after a Democrat wins. Or over-borrowing concerns after a Republi
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Of course not. This is obviously a coordinated effort to force greater censorship of Facebook content for political purposes. You don't get that many companies all agreeing to perform a given action at a given time all by coincidence. It's simply not credible.
He's right (Score:2)
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That's an interesting point. If Facebook comes out as pro-censorship, they might lose a lot of the more conservative users, which could be detrimental to their election ad revenue. They probably did the math and decided the consumer product ad spending was disappearing anyways due to COVID-19, they might as well try to hang on to the election spending.
It depends... (Score:3)
If the advertisers run measurements and determine that Facebook advertising is ineffective (which I suspect is the case a lot of the time), they won't be back.
But it has nothing to do with ethics. Just pure business.
Proverbs 16:18 (Score:2, Interesting)
Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall.
It seems like assuming advertisers will come back simply because FB is the largest platform is a real display of hubris that may not be borne out by reality.
FaceBook (and Zuckerberg in particular) are really on the wrong side of things here - to make matters worse, they're not acting aggressively enough to address the issue and it's going to be a good while before flagship brands (Lego, Coca Cola, etc.) come back and during this time these
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This is where Zuckerberg needs a board that can tell him what to do, I don't think he has the maturity/life experience to recognize that he's doing lasting damage to FB.
He apparently doesn't recognize he's done "lasting damage" to people in meatspace, either.
Wrong side? (Score:4)
Since when is caving into an angry internet mob being on the wrong side? It boils down to people disliking Trump so much they want him silenced from their social media platforms. They can't stand the fact he uses THEIR platform. I don't have to follow any of Trump's social media accounts because every Democrat and media outlet does it for me. Literally every tweet Trump makes is a headline. You don't think he realizes that?
Who said anything about Trump? (Score:2)
As I understand it, the issue has relatively little to do with Trump, more that white supremacist and other hate groups use FB with impunity and can advertise on FB to help recruit new members.
If you RFTA, you'll see that Trump isn't even mentioned.
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It all started when Zuck wouldn't label Trump's quote has hate speech or threatening violence.
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I get the feeling Zuck is more worried about the other angry Internet mob, the one that'd pop up if they did anything that might be perceived as limiting Trump. He's happy to let other platforms like Twitter catch that heat. It's apparent that Zuck is trying to walk a very fine line -
"We won't change anything."
"Well, we'll change a little..."
"We won't change a thing more!"
He wants to please everyone. He can't ban Trump or put a warning on his posts - that'd start a holy war. But he still wants to throw a ti
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If they cave they go bankrupt (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:If they cave they go bankrupt (Score:5, Interesting)
The first amendment does not apply at all since that is the government restricting speech.
Also, reddit did go after their extreme groups and participation went UP. It turns out that having these extremists around actually lowers the overall level of speech. In the same way that holding your meeting in a sewer ensures nobody else is going to come.
There is quite well studied at this point. Banning hate and extremists from a platform almost always results in more participation and letting it run rampant usually ends up with people no longer participating and eventually leaving for less toxic communities.
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Facebook is dead. (Score:2)
Says everyone else.
Not sorry, Zuckerberg. We know you're a "functioning" psychopath.
Advertising on facebook? (Score:1)
Never had it, never will (Score:2)
Online jobs (Score:1)
"I bravely commit to do nothing!" -- Zuck, Always (Score:2)