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Stop Hate for Profit

Dear MN350 Communications Committee and others.

A week ago I suggested the MN350 pause it’s advertising on Facebook in response to the growing “Stop Hate for Profit” movement that was launched on June 17th. I’m happy to see that a discussion of that suggestion is on the agenda for the Communications Committee meeting on Wednesday, July 8th.

I’d like to briefly explain why I’m asking MN350 to pause its Facebook advertising. Firstly, I do not believe that the size of MN350’s advertising budget is relevant. Many small companies and organizations have signed on to Stop Hate for Profit. You can see the list here  https://www.stophateforprofit.org/participating-businesses

There are two reasons that Stop Hate for Profit has grown so quickly. The first is sort of pragmatic idealism. Big companies like Unilever and Verizon don’t want their ads paired with hateful, racist, anti-Semitic, and Islamophobic messages from groups like QAnon. Yet that is exactly what’s been happening. And Facebook profits from that. You can see examples of that here  https://www.adl.org/blog/hate-conspiracy-theories-and-advertising-on-facebook

There is a small chance that MN350’s ads could be paired with such an ad. But I think the second reason that Stop Hate for Profit has grown quickly is what MN350’s decision should be based on.

The murder of George Floyd by the Minneapolis police and, in a way, by us has opened a window for us to become better. There are many actions we can take to become truly anti-racist. Some of those must take place in our hearts but others must be taken together. Bill McKibben, and so many others, has said that we must act against climate disruption together if we are to make a difference. The same is true about creating an anti-racist society. We must act together.

The Stop Hate for Profit movement is an opportunity for us to act together to make Facebook better. Facebook is such a profound presence in our lives. Let us not be passive consumers of Facebook thereby enabling its evil side to exist and prosper. Let us act together to make to make ourselves better and to make this useful tool called Facebook better.

Stop Hate For Profit has very specific objectives. As a result, it will be clear when they’ve been accomplished. You can find them here https://www.stophateforprofit.org/productrecommendations   Some are pasted below.

Tim
Central Minnesota Political

Accountability

1. Establish and empower permanent civil rights infrastructure including C-suite level executive with civil rights expertise to evaluate products and policies for discrimination, bias, and hate. This person would make sure that the design and decisions of this platform considered the impact on all communities and the potential for radicalization and hate.

2. Submit to regular, third party, independent audits of identity-based hate and misinformation with summary results published on a publicly accessible website. We simply can no longer trust Facebook’s own claims on what they are or are not doing. A “transparency report” is only as good as its author is independent.

3. Provide audit of and refund to advertisers whose ads were shown next to content that was later removed for violations of terms of service. We have documented many examples of companies’ advertisements running alongside the horrible content that Facebook permits. That is not what most advertisers pay for, and they shouldn’t have to.



“Since the start of the campaign on June 17, nearly 100 companies including Verizon, Ben & Jerry’s, and North Face have committed to joining the #StopHateforProfit pledge against Facebook and hit pause on ad spending for July 2020. With calls across the world demanding justice for Black people, Facebook’s failure to protect and support Black users has never been clearer.”  Rashad Robinson, Color of Change, June 26th 

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